Sounds Like Friendship
by DrSpaceWizard Esq
Summary: Myles is a pony sick of his own failures, the latest of which has landed him a thankless job guarding Ponyville from the creatures living in the Everfree forest. When Twilight Sparkle arrives, his job gets a lot easier, then immediately even more difficult. Watch him unravel a lost magical art and try to be nice to ponies for a change. Rated T for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Needed something creative to do that didn't really matter, well not exactly, but something I can't worry about. So here's a thing… whaddyacallit… fanfic. That's it. Used to not think much of this sortve thing, but I started reading others one day and decided they weren't that bad. Not even sure I'm gonna post all this. One thing I've never read is comments or reviews on this site, so hopefully those aren't violently offensive. I don't own My Little Pony, obviously.**

**Feels really weird to be typing that after reading something similar all those times, but no giving up now. Hope the story is more rewarding. And sorry, my OC (another weird thing to type) is kind of a jerk at random times for most of this chapter, but, y'know, character development or bust. I'll probably go back and rewrite some of this once I figure everything out.**

Episode 1 – Friendship is Magic Pt. 1 or Shards of Life

Impatient knocking woke Myles from his sleep. He carefully peeled his face off of his worktable and checked his nearby materials. Examining each crystal by lifting it with his magic and turning it around, he found the only one stuck to the table was the small green one from the first night he had fallen asleep trying to work. Looking to the window, he saw the dull glow of the early sunrise. A frown crossed his face as the knocking sounded again, louder this time. Casually pushing the navy blue section of his mane over his horn so that it no longer hung in front of his eyes, he opened the front door to an irritated mare.

"Mr. Shadsal," the grey-coated mare began.

"Shardsole," Myles corrected automatically. When the mare's glowering increased, he added, "Your… Mayorlyness?"

"Just Mayor," Mayor Mare sighed. "I need a report on the status of the Everfree Forest."

Myles blinked, still half asleep. "Uhhh… it's still there."

"This is not a matter to joke about, Princess Celestia is coming to Ponyville for-"

"-The Summer Sun Celebration and absolutely nothing must go wrong. I know." Myles finished with slight frustration not quite hidden in his tone.

"And yet instead of securing the border between the forest and the town, you are apparently sleeping in… again." The Mayor narrowed her eyes as Myles failed to hide a yawn.  
>"I told you I'm working on-"<p>

"-a solution," Mayor Mare looked down her nose at him, "So you've said. I noticed this solution appears to be exclusively inside your house and not at the border, where your post is."

"My house is ON the border."

"I'd be surprised you could hear any disturbance from in here, I had to knock a total of-"

"Will you be approaching a point soon or should I go make breakfast while I wait?"

The Mayor's face deepened to a true scowl.

"If anything disrupts the celebration I will hold you personally responsible. Fortunately the Princess will be on hand to witness your incompetence firsthand, so filing a complaint will be easy. I've still no idea how somepony like you earned her recommendation."

"Well here's a start, my job is to protect Ponyville from the creatures, magic and what have you from the Everfree Forest."

"I'm aware of-"

"So turn around."

"What?" The Mayor seemed surprised, but looked behind her regardless.

"Is Ponyville still there?"

"Well of cours-" the Mayor began, but as she turned around the door was shut in her face. "I simply cannot believe the impudence of-" the Mayor's mumbling faded away as she stormed off in anger. Myles grumbled to himself, moving to his kitchen and levitating two pieces of bread into the toaster, the handle briefly glowed a dull gray-blue as he pushed it down with his magic. Going back to the fridge, he continued his muttered complaints to no one, "Gotta be outside and just staring at trees the whole time? What constitutes protection, exactly? I'm here aren't I? When a manticore tries to get into town I stop it don't I? Even if it's THREE A.M.!" he finished with a shout, slamming his refrigerator door and setting the milk and butter dish on the counter.

Myles leaned on the counter, his head propped up in his hoof as he stared at the toaster. Next to him, the milk floated up a bit and tipped over, beginning to pour itself out into a glass. Suddenly the milk carton shook and dropped to the counter on its side, pouring its contents out on the floor and knocking the glass over. Without looking, Myles kept the glass from rolling off the counter with his other hoof and let his head down onto the counter with a thud.

"…buck…" his voice was muffled by the countertop. He lay there for a minute, before lifting his head and going to the closet to fetch a mop, which he gripped with his hooves and began to clean the floor with. "I'll be honest, your Mayorlyness," he grumbled, "I don't know why I got recommended either…"

He finished cleaning up and tossed the milk carton away when suddenly the smell of burning caught his attention. He turned to the toaster, which was emitting smoke and growled as he flipped the lever up manually to reveal two pieces of bread-shaped charcoal. "Eating out, then I guess…" he said to no one before correcting himself, "Oh no wait, that would mean leaving my post, guess I'll have to pick something up." He levitated his dark blue saddlebag over his back and dropped it on his shoulders, only seeming lighter when compared to the navy blue pattern on his back coat, but was still darker than the light gray-blue section of his coat starting from his flanks and extending down his legs and front. He frowned at the contrast, remembering some past insults associated with it. He hadn't been teased about it since Canterlot, though he wouldn't doubt they still said such things behind his back. His frown deepened at these memories as he closed his front door behind him and headed for the local farm, judging by the position of the sun, the shops wouldn't be open yet.

On the way, he heard a familiar springy noise and quietly groaned in anticipation of what comes next.

"Hello, Pinkie," he said with a sigh.  
>"Hey! Wow! How do you always do that? Are you sure you don't have a Pinkie sense too? Or like a Shadowsal-"<p>

"Shardsole" He corrected automatically.

"-Shardowslaw sense?" the pink pony finished, bouncing backwards in front of him. Myles considered correcting her again, but thought better of it as he nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"But you always know I'm there before I say anything! It's so neat! It's like magic! Oh right!" she tapped her hoof to his horn, causing him to flinch a little, "Speaking of neat magic, would you like to come to a pre-Summer Sun Celebration part-"

"Can't, too busy."

He could swear he actually heard a balloon deflate somewhere as she stopped hopping and frowned a bit. "Awwww. But you're ALWAYS busy! Or asleep! Or Sleepily busy! Or busy sleeping! Or sleepy busing! Or-"

"Yup," he said as he continued to walk, "pretty much…" he mumbled to no one in particular, realizing she was having too much fun to notice he had kept going. Before long he arrived at Sweet Apple Acres and was surprised to find a small crowd milling outside the barn. He attempted to get one's attention to no avail when he suddenly heard somepony shout his name.

"Howdy, Myles!" he turned to see a familiar orange coat and cowboy hat and smirked, it was always interesting talking to Applejack, her problems always seemed so much more straight forward and she was rarely visibly stressed about them. It reminded him that life could be simple, when it wanted to.

"Hey Applejack," he replied, then gestured towards the crowd, "Am I interrupting something?"

"Naw, this here's my family, we're having the Apple Family reunion right before the Summer Sun celebration, this here's Applefritt-" Applejack began, indicating one of the ponies in the crowd, but Myles held up a hoof.

"Sorry Applejack, I have to get back to the edge of the forest, I can meet your family some other time."

"Aw shucks, Myles, you're always busy, the forest may be creepy but it aint gonna explode if you stop looking at it for five minutes."

"I wouldn't put it past it to try."

Applejack laughed as she went into the barn and brought out a small bag of apples.

"Alright sugarcube, but I think you still deserve a break once in a while. Unfortunately the kitchen's occupied preparing meals for the reunion so I've got nothing ready to go to market, will these be okay?" She held up the bag of apples.

"Yeah those'll be fine," he said as he opened his saddlebag and rummaged around for some bits, then looked back at Applejack nervously, "Uhhhhh…I'm a bit short of …bits at the moment, could I interest you in a crystal that-"

"It's alright sugarcube, it's on the house."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely," she smiled as she tucked the bag into his saddlebag.

"Thanks AJ," he smiled, just a bit, as he made his way back to his house.

"See ya round, Myles!" Applejack waved, Myles casually waved back over his shoulder.

As he neared his home, he let out another sigh as he spotted a yellow pegasus waiting outside his house, seeming to be locked in a heavy debate over how hard to knock.

"Something wrong, Fluttershy?" he spoke up when he was a short distance from her, causing her to jump and spin in his direction.

"Oh," she seemed to calm down a bit, standing back up from the ground, where she had been in a stance as if preparing to take flight. "There you are."

"Yeahp," Myles let out bluntly, "There I am. What's up?"

"I just wanted to ask, if it wasn't too much trouble, if you could make extra certain there isn't anything leaving…" she shivered as she glanced at the tree line, "…. The forest."

Myles put a hoof to his head in exasperation, "How am I supposed to do that any more or less than usual? It's my job, I'm doing it! Why does everyone have to keep pestering me about it?" Fluttershy recoiled a little bit as he raised his voice, but stood up straight to speak once more.

"I know, but there's a lot of little creatures coming out of the …forest… acting like they are really frightened of something. Something they won't even tell me about."

Myles sighed again, "Well don't worry, whatever it is, its staying in the forest," she recoiled a bit at the mention of the woods, "I'll make sure of it."

"Okay," Fluttershy took off and started gliding away, "Thanks Myl-" her voice faded to a mumble as she floated off.

"Whatever," he mumbled as he set his saddle bag down and pulled an apple out with his magic, taking a bite as he turned towards the crystals on his table. He stared at them grumpily, then set the apple down as he focused on the one he had been working on. His horn lit up as he attempted to push magic inside and enchant the crystal. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he concentrated, hearing the all too familiar humming as the crystal vibrated with energy. The hum built in pitch and volume until it was no longer a basslike thrum but a high-pitched squeal like feedback on a sound system. Myles frowned and ducked under the table as the sound escalated to a ringing and the crystal exploded into tiny fragments, several embedded into his walls while the rest scattered across the floor. He growled and picked up his apple again, opening his mouth to take a bite when he noticed a shiny object in it. Picking the crystal shard out, he wiped the apple off on his hoof and took another large bite. Looking at his saddlebag, he noticed several tiny holes in the side and made a mental note to look before he bit in to any of the apples he had brought home. Once again, he gave out a heavy sigh and slumped against the side of his bed.

Myles levitated a crystal from his bedside table in front of his face and tapped it with his hoof. A pair of violas could be heard beginning a slow melody and were soon joined by cellos playing the same tune half an octave up to match them. More instruments joined in as Myles closed his eyes and listened to the music build and waving his ears back and forth as though conducting the orchestra, then transferring the crystal to his hoof and sinking lower to the ground.

"It still works. Of course it still works. No matter how long ago it's been, it still works." He opened his eyes and looked at the table, which showed new scars from his latest attempt. He frowned at something barely audible and continued, "But only for the music. Never something that could actually help."

A growl echoed from the woods, causing Myles' ears to stand up and him to set the crystal down gently before kicking his front door open and galloping over to the tree line.

"And speaking of things that AREN'T HELPING!" he ended in a shout at the fully grown manticore snarling at him, "Didn't we have this disagreement last night?" He asked mockingly. The manticore couldn't have understood him as he didn't have Fluttershy's gift for communication, but evidently some of his taunting tone was clear to it as the lion's head roared at him.

"Yeah," he said, smiling, "That's what _I _said."

The manticore leapt and Myles rolled sideways, letting the manticore's claws dig into the soil where he was standing before. It turned its head as it heard a whistle from the forest, it ripped it's claws from the ground and brought itself around to face a smiling Myles.

"You're really determined to do this whole song and dance again, aren't you?"

The manticore charged again pursuing Myles as he ran into the Everfree Forest, the trees shook as the beast roared in frustration. The forest shook and smaller animals fled every time the manticore's tail struck the ground where Myles had been standing instants before. Myles galloped on, leaping over fallen logs and large gnarled roots, finally running up the trunk of a tree that had been struck by lightning and fallen over, now leaned up against a small cliff. Grinning, Myles turned back to see an empty forest, the smile sliding off his face as he heard a low growl build behind him.

His eyes went wide as he leapt from the cliff into the small pool of bog water below. Behind him, claws the size of wheelbarrows scraped the rocks where he had been standing and the manticore roared in frustration. Myles erupted from the water and shook filthy water from his mane, before sprinting off again, an instant before the manticore slammed into the pool and set off after him.

"You actually remembered?" he shouted back, panting as he maintained a fast pace to stay ahead of the monster, "I didn't know our talks mattered that much to you, I'm touched, really."

Myles pulled a nearby branch back with his magic and let it snap back into place as he passed. From behind he heard a roar of pain as the branch collided with the manticore's face. Myles chuckled as he tried again with another branch, but looked around when he heard no roar to see the monster ducking under the branch. "Paying attention now huh?" Myles smirked as he attempted to shift a log into its path, the log shuddered but remained in place. "Not now!" he looked at the magic around his horn flicker out.

He turned his eyes forward as he almost tripped over the root of a tree and muttered, "Okay Everfree, gimme something to work with." He scanned the woods ahead. "Caves? No escape route. Swamps? Dunno what else lives there yet. Cmon, work with me." He pleaded. Suddenly his eyes went wide and he planted all his hooves on the ground and leaned back, skidding to a stop. "That'll do, thanks," he whispered as he heard trees crashing behind him and felt the whole forest shake with the creature's heavy footfalls.

Myles casually turned around and smiled as the thirty foot beast leapt at him again. "Sooooo….. we're cool, right?" Myles jumped sideways again as the manticore sailed roaring over the edge and into the basin overgrown in trees and vines. Raising an ear, he waited until he heard a loud thud and winced, before turning and walking back towards Ponyville.

"Good talk, buddy."

When Myles arrived back at his house, it was past noon and he was too exhausted to try and find lunch, or close the door. He bit into one of his apples, spat out a few crystal shards, showered the muck from the bog away and finally collapsed into his bed.

Myles felt something poke him but simply rolled his head towards the pillow. Something poked him harder and this time it also spoke.

"Myles Shardsole?"

"Shardso-" Myles began automatically, but then he frowned in confusion, "I mean, yeah that's me."

"Are you alright?"

Myles rolled over to see a strange unicorn mare he'd never met before. He sat up and tried to come up with something.

"I'm as alright as you are …. purple…?" He hesitated, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Wha-?" the mare began.

"Gimme a minute, I'll come up with something better."

"Riiiiiight…." She fixed a skeptical gaze on him, "Anyways, I'm Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia sent me to make sure everything is prepared for the Summer Sun Celebration, she said you were in charge of protecting the town from the creatures that live in the Everfree Forest, I'm here to check that it's been done."

Myles had gotten up and started examining the apple he had taken a bite out of earlier, he idly picked a few specks of crystal out of it and took notice of what appeared to be a baby dragon, also purple, wandering around his house. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Twilight.

"That's Spike, my assistant." Twilight explained.

"Hi," Spike waved at Myles as the dragon reached up towards the bedside table.

"Well, the town is still there and not currently being attacked. I don't get why this is so hard for everypony to see- HEY!" He spun around and took the crystal out of Spike's claw with his magic. It floated over next to him as he scolded Spike, "Careful with that! You always go into pony's houses and grab everything? How'd you even get in here-" he looked worried as the crystal wobbled in mid-air and then stretched out a hoof to catch it. Time seemed to slow as the crystal tumbled past his hoof towards the floor. He winced as the crystal glowed purple and stopped a millimeter from the floor. It levitated upwards again. "Thanks, I-" Myles attempted to grab the crystal, it floated away from him.

"The door was open." Twilight said matter-of-factly as she looked at the crystal.

"What?" said Myles as he reached again for the crystal.

"Your front door was open. That's how we got in. We thought something might've happened to you," she explained, bringing the crystal closer to herself and keeping it out of Myles' reach.

"Thanks for your concern but- Listen, could you just hand that over…" Myles said, Twilight raised an eyebrow at him, "…please?" She narrowed her brow and refocused on the crystal.

"What's so important about this one? You've got plenty of crystals," she nodded towards the work table. She wondered why he had such a collection, none of them were particularly good specimens and he didn't have them out in a manner to be displayed, more like tools left out in the middle of work.

"Yeah, but-" Myles began but stopped as Twilight allowed the crystal to settle on her extended hoof, immediately the crystal began playing music again, which caused Twilight's eyes to widen in surprise. She backed up as Myles made another grab for the crystal, then finally sat back and grumbled.  
>"That one works."<p>

"I don't get it, crystals reflect magic, or at least mess it up, but this is definitely magic, did…" she hesitated and glanced at Myles, "did you enchant this?" Myles nodded. "How?"

"I don't know!" Myles snapped, "Okay? That one works, it's the first one that did and the only one I have left!" His head hung in shame as he continued "And I've no idea how…"

"But you did this? How could you not know how you did it?" Twilight asked with genuine curiosity, Myles' eyebrow twitched momentarily, but then he seemed to realize she didn't mean it as an insult.

"Because I tried it when I was young, didn't really plan it out and believe me, I was shocked when it worked. It was nice to have an extra credit project actually worth something, for once," he smirked.

"Then this is the crystal that you showed Princess Celestia? This is what she sponsored you to research when you left the academy in Canterlot?" Twilight asked.

His smirk vanished. "Told you about that, did she?" Twilight nodded. "Did she mention I've made no progress since and she sent me to Ponyville as punishment?"

Twilight looked shocked, "Actually she seemed to think you've made excellent progress, considering enchanting crystals was once thought impossible, and she said the move to Ponyville was so you could get a fresh outlook on your work." Myles let out a snort.

"Sounds like something she'd say. It all sounds great the way she puts it, doesn't it? Even if it doesn't make sense."

"Actually," Twilight frowned, "I know what you mean. She ignored my warning about Nightmare Moon and told me to come here and make friends." She laughed a little and Myles' smirk returned.

"Probably makes perfect sense to her." He chuckled.

"So," Twilight held the crystal to her ear, listening carefully, "There were other crystals?"

"Yeah," Myles admitted, turning back to his apple and taking a bite, "but only ones that light up or play music, nothing useful."

"Light could be useful and what's wrong with music?"

"There wasn't enough light to see by and you couldn't even pick what song you wanted. Never could make rhyme or reason why some songs worked and some didn't." He held out his hoof for the crystal. Twilight narrowed her eyes in concentration.

"What's that sound?"

"What soun- oh you mean like a ringing or humming sound?"

Twilight nodded.

"That's the energy bleed out," Myles stated, continuing only when Twilight looked at him questioningly, "The crystalline formation is usually imperfect, so the energy from the spell is disrupted by any impurities and gets forced out, usually as kinetic energy. What you are hearing is the surface vibrating as the energy is transferred."

Twilight stared at Myles, who shifted uneasily.

"What?" he asked nervously, wondering why everything he said had to lead to more questions or weird looks.

"That sounded … intelligent."

"You sound surprised. What you think I spent the entire time just trying to force spells into the crystal like an idiot? I actually did research this, it just never amounted to anything." He took a bite of his apple and winced as he bit into something hard. He then removed the crystal shard from his tongue before lowering his ears and continuing, "Okay, sometimes I try and just force spells in there, but it's not like I have anything to go on, scientifically speaking."

"You've checked everything?"

"Yeah."

"Crystal size, color, composition?"

"Yes."

"Spell power and complication?"

"Yeahp."

"What about-?"

"Believe me, Twilight, it's been years since I enchanted that thing and I have checked everything! OKAY?!" Twilight backed up again as Myles raised his voice with every word. He seemed to realize he had been pushing her back and turned around. "Sorry, Twilight, bit of a sore subject. Look the forest is secure, I'm always here in case something happens. Always," he frowned again, picking up the crystal with his magic and carefully setting it back on the table. "So you don't have to worry about that. I'm sure you're very busy, so-"

"Why does the hum follow the music? Shouldn't the sound be constant, isn't it a recording of one continuous performance?"

"The hums' always there, I've had that for so long, I guess I just tune it out."

"I realize that, but the sound increases as the music does, it should always be the same, shouldn't it?."

"What? No it-" Myles held the crystal up to his ear, stopping as it began to play again. His ears stood up straight and he froze. After a few moments, Twilight reached a hoof towards him.

"Myl-"

"Shh!" He cut her off and narrowed his eyes as he focused on the music.

The violas danced up the scale, the cellos joined in, then the rest, just like they always had. Something had always bothered him about the recording, seemed off about the sound. It was a song he used to like, though it had worn thin over the years, especially with the unidentified irregularity. Now he heard the song and the hum he had ignored for so long. He could see the performers lift the bows of their instruments, pausing between notes. As the last note faded, so did the hum. When the next note played, the hum swelled in unison with the music. The note was even similar to the cello section of the song.

The sound harmonized with the music as much as possible.

Myles slowly lowered the crystal to the table and mumbled, "…seriously? That's all it was?"

Twilight barely heard him, but after taking a moment she spoke, "What is it?"

His head whipped around and Twilight found herself hastily retreating from a manic grin.

"You don't know? But you pointed it out? How could you not know?" he seemed half crazed but still sincere to Twilight.

"Pointed what out? What are you talking about? Are you alright?"

"No!" He shouted, laughing, "I'm stuck on the edge of a town where everyone pesters me about my job when my job should have been figuring this out, but it shouldn't have taken so long!" He grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil, hastily scribbling as he spoke, "The energy bleeding out is harmonizing with the music itself! It's vibrating the crystal at a frequency and pitch matching the output of the spell! It's not perfect, so it's noticeably off-key, but the fact that the expenditure even remotely follows the spells purpose and bleeds out due to imperfections in the storage method means the spell itself must have a wavelength, a tempo, pitch, amplitude, EVERYTHING!"

"How does that help?" Twilight skeptically demanded. She glanced briefly at the pad as he set down the pencil to see a hasty drawing of a wave reverberating inside a crystal shape set beside a musical scale.

"It changes everything! The music was the key all along! The light spells must've been a complete fluke but the MUSIC! THE MUSIC MEANT EVERYTHING!" He rounded on one of the crystals and shot a bolt of magic at it from his horn. The crystal began shaking before settling on a hum then going silent. Myles touched the crystal and once again his shout was heard, this time originating from the crystal. "THE MUSIC MEANT EVERYTHING!"

"But that was a recording of something you said, not music!"

"I know," said Myles, biting his lip in excitement. He shot magic at another crystal and seemed to concentrate harder this time, the hum was barely audible and didn't seem to Twilight to change pitch at all, but Myles seemed satisfied as it stopped. Before Twilight could ask what he'd done, she braced herself as she saw Myles throw the half eaten apple directly at her.

"What are you doing!? You could've hit-" she fell silent as she opened her eyes.

The apple was suspended above the crystal, a pale glowing barrier had stopped it in mid-flight.

"YES!" Myles shouted skywards in joy as he ran up to Twilight and pulled her into a tight embrace. "Magic has a waveform, crystalline structures work as an energy conducting sounding board and YOU," he pulled away from the hug and placed a hoof on Twilight's nose, "Are a bucking beautiful genius!" Twilight barely had time to react as he directed his horn at the pile of crystals on the workbench and swept a spell across them all, then swept them all off the surface and into his saddlebags, he turned and enchanted one last crystal, tying it to his neck with a loose piece of cord, it glowed briefly but then he pushed past Twilight and out the door before she could ask what he'd done.

"…is he gonna be okay?" Spike asked quietly. Twilight turned and placed him on her back. "Let's find out."

Outside they spotted Myles galloping down the tree line, cackling like a madpony and slamming a crystal from his saddle bag into the ground at regular intervals. When he made it to the end he galloped back, adding a few more in front of places that seemed like animal trails before coming to stop in front of Twilight and lifting the crystal around his neck. Twilight looked concerned.

"Do you hear it?" He asked, not attempting at all to contain his glee.

"Hear what?" After a moment, Twilight gasped as the crystal began emitting light in the shape of a convex lens, forming what appeared to be half an upside-down fishbowl.

"Here we go," whispered Myles as he extended a hoof towards the forest. As it passed over the line of crystals, the crystal in Myles hoof emitted a tone and a small spot on the fishbowl changed from its uniform blue shell to form a tiny red oval.

The shape of a miniscule hoof.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Twilight and Spike covered their ears as Myles ran a few laps around them, shouting at the top of his lungs, before embracing them both in a hug once more and then just as quickly turning back to his house.

"Nothing goes in or out of that forest without me knowing now, Twilight Sparkle! You enjoy the Summer Sun Celebration. I'm going to start catching up on MONTHS of sleep! Maybe I'll pop by Pinkie Pie's party later, she'll be so surprised! I could swing by the Summer Sun Celebration MYSELF! I can finally do what I waaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaahhhnnnyt!" His shout involuntarily turned into a yawn. "I'm gonna go ahead and start with sleep though."

He bolted towards his door and shut it. Twilight turned to walk away with a smile when he sprinted back out and hugged her again, "You are. The best friend. I have ever had. Thank you." Twilight thought she saw his eyes watering as he ran back into his house. She was still shaken by his statement and how genuine it had seemed. Then she shook her head and looked to the sky saying, "That's not going to stop Nightmare Moon. C'mon, Spike, we have to finish checking on the preparations for the ceremony and find a way to stop her."

"That guys' in charge of security? I'm more worried about that."

"You saw what he did, he may act strange but he seems to have the situation in control. Probably more so now than ever before." She stated confidently as she walked back towards the center of town as Spike merely shrugged in reply.

Myles woke slowly, stretching and yawning until he felt the weight of the crystal tied to his neck. As he remembered the afternoon's events, he couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. It had been so long and the first crystal had always felt a bit like stupid luck. He'd researched for years and until today had only found evidence of why it shouldn't work. Now it finally all made sense. He didn't even care that somepony else figured it out, this was only the beginning and he had the key to making the rest of the process work now.

Looking over to his clock, he frowned, it was early morning of the next day. He had likely missed Pinkie Pie's party as he had about a half hour before the Princess' appearance at the celebration. He tore an old leather bag apart and formed it into a bracer that would fit around his left front foreleg, then he took the crystal and set it between layers, using the cord to secure it in place. It still looked a little shabby, but it was a tad more useful than having it swing about his neck. Making sure the leather was snug around his hoof and leg, he galloped towards city hall for the celebration, eager to show Princess Celestia the first useful progress made in his research after so much failure.

As he approached the doors, Myles heard Mayor Mare speaking to the crowd, he had only just made it in time. He opened one of the doors quietly and slid into the room without anypony noticing. He looked around and saw a few familiar faces, but missed the one he was searching for until he found the one pony not looking at the stage. Twilight Sparkles eyes' were turned skyward, staring at the moon with a nervous look on her face. Myles quietly approached until he was right next to her, but she looked back to the stage, not noticing him. He cast a glance skyward himself and was about to mention it looked a little different when the Mayor finished her speech.

"…Princess Celestia!" the Mayor stepped aside, a fanfare played and another pony pulled a rope to reveal an empty balcony. There were murmurs of shock throughout the crowd.

"This can't be good," Twilight remarked in worry.

"Remain calm, everypony," the Mayor implored the crowd, "there must be a reasonable explanation."

"Oh! OH! I love guessing games! Is she hiding?" Pinkie popped up on the other side of Twilight, hopping up and down with joy.

"She's gone!" announced the pony at the curtain, making the crowd gasp.

"She's good…" said Pinkie in excitement.

"Sorry Pinkie," Myles spoke up, causing Twilight to gasp as they both turned in his direction, "Princess Celestia may enjoy the occasional joke, but she tends to save them for after official ceremonies, not during."

"Hey, you made it!" Pinkie exclaimed.

Twilight had her eyes fixed on the balcony when she spoke,

"So did she."

They all turned to the balcony to see a dark alicorn with a sheet of night sky instead of a mane.

"Oh, my beloved subjects," she spoke with a mischievous grin, "it's been so long since I've seen your precious, little sun-loving faces."  
>"What'd you do with our Princess?" a rainbow maned pegasus shouted, springing up to attack the alicorn, she was held down by Applejack. "Woah there, nelly!"<p>

The alicorn laughed, "Why? Am I not royal enough for you? Don't you know who I am?"

"OOH! OOH! More guessing games! Ummm…" Pinkie Pie put a hoof to her chin and thought, "Hokey smokes? How bout…. Queen Meanie? No. Black Snooty! BLACK SNOOTY! Th-" She was cut off as Applejack shoved a cupcake in her mouth.

"Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the sign?"

"I did," Twilight spoke up, "and I know who you are. You're the Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon." The crowd gasped again.

"Well, well, well," the alicorn mused, "Somepony who remembers me. Then you also know why I'm here?"

"You're here to- to-" Twilight stuttered nervously, which made the alicorn chuckle sinsterly.

"Remember this day, my little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night… will last… FOREVER!" She proclaimed with maniacal laughter as lightning struck the ceiling.

Myles could only stare. It wasn't exactly the ideal start to his first day off.

**Couple things before you comment. Twilight states here that crystals are extremely hard to enchant, and that no one thought it possible. Before you go bringing up the Crystal Empire, that's part of the point, those ponies have been gone nearly 1000 years and when Celestia mentions them to her in season 3 (why do I know this? Ugh, I shame myself), Twilight says she never read anything about the Crystal Empire. I wanted to keep that part accurate at least, but assuming enchanting crystals was something ponies in the crystal empire did primarily, it would make sense that most of the techniques for doing so would vanish along with them. But Twilight can't know that because she never read about them. Honestly that part is hardest for me to believe. All she did prior to Ponyville was read and she had access to the castle, there are no books in there that even MENTION the crystal empire? But it's in the show, so in it stays. Which isn't to say I won't change some things, but rather than write in numerous references to the crystal empire before it's time, I think I'll keep her ignorance instead, thanks. **

**Myles is spelled with a "y" for a reason that will be revealed later, despite it not being all that impressive or important. It is not spelled that way because poor literacy is kewl. **

**I'll add the second episode later, if anyone actually wants to continue reading this and lets me know. I'll probably still write more of this, but depending on how much I get chewed out for this I may or may not post it here.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, I've started this and at the very least I should finish the opening story arc, feedback or not. I've been kind of going back and forth on how this should actually go down. The way I imagined it and the way it's ended up when I typed it out have already changed it considerably, and now I'm almost compelled to continue just to see what I actually end up with. I'm not sure if it's just the process of putting it into a narrative that's doing it or wanting to keep things interesting for potential readers, maybe both. I don't own, My Little Pony (do I have to say that every chapter? I've seen some authors say you do and some authors who don't and the latter's stories don't get taken down. Better safe than sorry I guess)**

Friendship is Magic Pt. 2  or Between A Pile of Crystals and a Hard Place 

More lightning struck as the alicorn continued in her crazed mirth. The Mayor finally seemed to regain her composure.

"Seize her!" she shouted, pointing a hoof towards the offending pony, "Only she knows where the princess is!" Several of the Princess royal guard flew at the balcony to challenge Nightmare Moon. Myles briefly wondered where they had been when the Princess had disappeared, but quickly refocused on the spell he was trying to cast. If he could pin her down somehow… His horn sparked and the magic flickered. "Really?! Now?" He asked his own horn incredulously.

"Stand back you foals!" Nightmare mocked the guard as lightning and magical smoke knocked the guards to the ground, then proceeding to wrap itself around her. It shrank and flew over the crowd, who quickly scattered. Myles ducked as the smoke passed by and looked over his shoulder as the doors flung themselves open and let the smoke slither outside.

Myles set off towards his house at a quick gallop. "One day off. After this long I would have been fine with ONE DAY, but no…" he could be heard mumbling. Arriving at home, he went over to a large trunk against the back wall and flipped it open. He levitated his saddlebag over and dumped the apples out on the floor before placing it in front of the trunk. Any other day, he'd have been at a loss for what to do in this situation. Today he looked down into the trunk and couldn't resist a grin.

Crystals filled the trunk. They were varied in size, color, composition and purity and weren't organized in any particular manner, but there a couple thousand in the trunk. All kept in reserve or tossed aside after failed analysis or experimentation that actually left them intact. He usually avoided looking at them. The trunk was once a reminder of his shame.

As of today, it was his armory.

He couldn't rely on his own magic too much, he'd learned that long ago, it was weak and prone to failure at the worst times. But this no longer concerned the unicorn scooping handfuls of crystals into his saddle bag. Now he could keep spells ready or even trigger many of them at once from different locations. And possibly bypass relying on his horn at all. Using a crystal to levitate the saddle bag and then walking under it, he reeled under the weight of the crystals he'd packed, but with a grunt he stood back up and headed for the door. He was stopped when he heard a small familiar tone.

Looking down at his bracer, the crystal glowed briefly before he activated it with his magic, the fishbowl projection coming up once more. It was almost entirely blue, but there was a spot a few meters away that had a fading red glow to it in a shape he couldn't identify. He ran outside and checked the spot in question, expecting to have to fight a creature before he set off after Nightmare Moon, but found nothing. More nothing than he expected, usually the Everfree forest rung with the chattering and chirping of small animals, birds and insects. Tonight, the forest was in absolute silence.

Myles tapped the crystal on his arm a few times. It hummed a bit in protest. As far as he could tell, the system was working properly, meaning something passed through the detection barrier. Yet when he looked around, there was nothing attacking the town. There weren't even any groups of small animals that could have flown through together.

His puzzlement was interrupted by a shout of "Whee! Let's go!" from behind.

"Not so fast," said another voice, "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I'd really rather do this on my own." Myles recognized Twilight Sparkle as she and five other ponies approached the edge of the woods.

"No can do, sugarcube," Applejack insisted, "We sure aint letting any friend of ours go into that creepy place alone." Twilight cringed behind her back, seeming to show concern over her mention of the word friend. "We're sticking to you like caramel on a candy apple."

"Especially if there's candy apples in there," Pinkie Pie piped up, "What? Those things are good!" The group were all walking towards the forest but finally stopped when they saw Myles standing in their way.

"Where are you going?"

"What's it to you? You gonna stop us, little pony?" the rainbow maned pegasus from earlier challenged him, getting right in his face.

Myles thought about this for a moment.

"Nah, feel free to go where you please," he said casually walking by her, "Just don't come crying to me when whatever just came out of there eats you before you get ten steps in." Myles laughed a bit but then stopped, suddenly raising his hoof and bringing up the display of the barrier again, then walking through said barrier himself. He took note of the red glow on the projection and face-hooved. "Idiot."

"What did you call me?" The pegasus got up in his face again.

"Not you," Myles said, pushing her face back with a hoof, "Me. I put up a perimeter to let me know when something passes through, but nothing to indicate which direction it was travelling."

"So if there's nothing out here with us…" started Applejack.

Myles nodded, "Then something just went in."

"Nightmare Moons must know where the elements are!" Twilight stated, "C'mon we've got to find them before she does!"

"Elements?" Myles asked.

"The Elements of Harmony," Twilight explained, "powerful magic that… oh just come on, I'll explain on the way."

Twilight gave an abridged explanation about the elements of harmony, of which there were seven total, that evidently had the power to defeat Nightmare Moon, seeing as they had been responsible for her imprisonment in the first place. Their destination was an old palace that belonged to the Princesses, which came as a shock to Myles, who hadn't seen anything of the kind before.

"So," Twilight began nervously, "None of you have been in here before?"

"Oh," replied the pony Myles had seen open the curtain at the ceremony, "just look at it, it's dreadful!" Her overly proper tone made Myles roll his eyes.

"And it aint natural," Applejack added, Myles looked back and was surprised to see the look of concern as she spoke, he'd never seen Applejack this nervous, "Folks say it don't work the same as Equestria."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Noooooooo pony knooooowwws!" the rainbow pony said in an intentionally spooky voice. "You know why?" She continued, ignoring Applejack's protest of "Rainbow, quit it." Myles smirked, of course that was actually her name. "'Cause everypony who's ever come in, has never" she advanced step by step, scaring the other ponies, "come," she crouched, "OUT!" she shouted as she hovered above the ground and the others recoiled in terror.

"I was in here yesterday," Myles spoke up, the girls stared aghast at him, even Rainbow seemed shocked, "its disorganized and chaotic yeah, but it's perfectly safe so long as you are carefu-" he was cut off as the ground beneath him and the girls crumbled and slid into the adjacent ravine. He heard the others shout as they slid down the embankment next to him. They grabbed various outcroppings and branches to bring themselves to a stop, but he and Twilight slid to a ledge at the bottom of the embankment. Twilight managed to grab the ledge but Myles went over the side. He floated a crystal out of his saddlebag and quickly jammed it into the cliff wall, then grabbed it with a magical tether from his horn, wincing as he came to a stop with his entire body weight held up by the protrusion from his head. He heard Applejack and Twilight speaking above him, Twilight becoming increasingly more distressed. Applejack looked over the edge and saw Myles and then spoke to Twilight, who seemed to protest some more before letting suddenly letting go of the ledge and screaming as she fell. Myles eyes widened in shock and he kicked away from the wall to swing himself to intercept Twilight, catching her with his front hooves as she fell and skidding to a stop against the cliff face with his back hooves. Twilight looked at Myles and then gave a sigh of relief. The both heard a sparking sound from above as Myles' horn flickered.

"No-!" was all Myles managed to say before they were both falling again, but once again they stopped as two pegusai caught him and he managed to hold onto Twilight. They fell again briefly as the winged ponies struggled with their combined weight, not to mention the weight of Myles crystal collection, but they regained control and brought them gently to the ground. "Sorry girls, I'm not used to holding anything more than a bunny or two." Myles caught his breath on the ground and Applejack leapt from rock to rock to land in front of him.

"What the hay was that Myles? Why'd you let go? I thought you'd done this sorta thing before!"

"Only on my own," Myles shot back indignantly, "and never relying on magic."

"But you're a unicorn!" Rainbow pointed out.

"Thanks," Myles sighed, "I hadn't noticed."

Twilight remembered her meeting with Myles earlier and tried to interrupt the coming argument, "… Rainbow…"

"You protect the town though!" Applejack interjected, "And I've seen you use magic before, why-"

"Because it doesn't always WORK!" Myles shouted. Applejack stepped back and the others simply stared.

"But-" the white unicorn began. Myles turned around and began walking into the woods again. Twilight followed him in and the others followed a short distance away. "Myles-" she began.

"I'm not particularly gifted with strength of magic to begin with and on top of that it likes to cut out in the middle of a spell if I cast it for too long, if I keep to short little spells everything's fine, but even so," he remarked "it's not a risk I like to take."

"Myles-" Applejack tried to interject.

"So if you want somepony reliable you bet on the wrong horse."

"Myles-"

"It's just an expression-"

"MYLES!"

"WHAT?!" he spun around, his nostrils flaring in annoyance.

"I just wanted to thank you," stated Twilight.

"And I just wanted to say sorry," Applejack added.

Myles hung his head and turned again, "Right…. Sorry about that."

"We don't think any le-" The white coated one placed a hoof on his shoulder, which he shook off violently.

"C'mon we're wasting time." Myles put in.

"Will you stop and just let people talk? Rarity's just trying to help!" Twilight protested, "Honestly, it's a wonder the Princess ever gave you a job with how rude you-"

"Quiet," Myles interrupted, looking around in worry.

"Now see here," Rarity started indignantly, "You will learn some respec-"

"Shut it!" yelled Myles raising his ear as he heard a familiar growl. "No…"

"What are you-" Rarity started before he pushed her forwards, she rounded on him for a reprimand just as the rocky bank next to him exploded outwards and covered the area in dust. Coughing, the girls looked up as the dust cleared to see a very large and irate manticore.

"RUN!" Myles shouted from where he'd landed on the ground, kicking a rock off of his flank and rolling to the side as the monster brought a large claw down on the space where he had previously been stuck. It quickly brought its other claw down on top of Myles chest, pinning him to the ground. "MYLES!" the girls shouted.

"Just go," he said, struggling underneath the creature and looking around for his saddle bag, which had come off during the initial attack, "I'll keep him busy."

"Wait…"

"Are you insane?!" Twilight shouted while the creature leaned its head down towards Myles, roaring in his face and revealing several long gashes along its face and side. The girls were too stunned to move.

"You know," Myles mocked as he wheezed under the creatures weight, smirking as he spotted his saddle bag behind the creature, some of the crystals having spilled out on the ground, his horn glowed a light grayish-blue, "I'm starting to take this personally. Most of the other beasts settle down after one tango, but you just keep coming back…" A pair of crystals began to hum.

"Wait."

"...for MORE!" Myles finished, as the two crystals tethered to each other and flung towards the beast's legs, wrapping them up and dragging them out from under him. At the same time, Myles placed his hooves on the creatures paw and pushed it up and away from himself and Rainbow chose that moment to fly up and kick the creature's face with her back legs. With only one leg to stand on and heavily unbalanced, the beast began to fall to the ground. Myles rolled away again and had just started to push himself to his hooves when the creature hit the ground causing the ground to shake. Myles steadied himself for a moment and then lifted a hoof to keep moving when the creature's tail whipped around and plowed into the ground right next to him. He cried out in pain as the impact flung him against the wall.

"Wait!"

Both the manticore and Myles scrabbled to their feet, preparing for another round.

"WAAAIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Fluttershy shouted, bringing everypony to a halt. She approached the manticore and gently nuzzled it's paw, showing she meant no harm. "Hey there, big guy, it's okay…" she said soothingly, the creature looked puzzled, then leaned closer and turned its head, revealing a large thorn lodged in one of the fresh gashes along its side. "Now this might hurt for juuuust a second," she plucked the thorn out, causing the creature to roar in pain.

"Fluttershy!" everypony shouted, expecting the creature to strike. Instead it purred and licked Fluttershy's mane.

"There, there," she crooned, "you're just a big fluffy softie aren't you?" After a few more licks, it released Fluttershy, who followed the others past the manticore. Myles was behind picking up his saddle bag and putting it back on, as the creature passed him, it gave a wicked snarl, but Fluttershy said, "Ah ah ah, none of that, he won't hurt you anymore." The monster kept an eye on Myles as it passed, only looking away when it got to a wide enough spot in the ravine to take off. Myles grunted and winced as he hefted his saddle bag, pausing next to Fluttershy, "Thanks," he mumbled.

Twilight watched him pass with a frown as she turned to Fluttershy, "How did you know about the thorn?"

"I didn't," Fluttershy answered confidently, "Sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness."

Twilight smiled and joined Fluttershy as they caught up with the others, soon coming to a slope that lead out of the ravine.

"Uuuuugh," Rarity shook, "My eyes need a rest from all this icky muck!" Myles rolled his eyes as she complained about Everfree forest's bog. Then he looked forward in surprise as everything around him seemed to grow dark.

"Well I didn't mean that literally." Rarity finished apprehensively.

"That ancient ruin could be right in front of our faces and we wouldn't even know it!" Twilight worried out loud. The rest of the girls began uttering apologies and squeaks of fright as they stumbled into each other in the dark. Myles merely kept walking and readjusted his saddle bag, using one of the crystals poking into the side to scratch something on his belly near his rear flank. After a brief sigh of relief, he was startled by a shriek from Fluttershy.

"It's just mud," Applejack said calmly as she turned and then leapt back in fear from the tree in front of her, which appeared to have a maw of sharp teeth attempting to consume her. The girls began to scream in fright as they looked around and found every tree around them had a similar deformation, some including eyes that clearly held ill-intent. Myles prepared to fight, despite not seeing any obvious weakness or method of their attack. A crystal in his pack hummed as he charged it and lifted it out, but the sound was drowned out by Pinkie Pie's laughter. Everypony turned to see her making goofy faces at one of the trees.

"Pinkie!" Twilight cried, "What are you doing? Run!"

Myles could swear he heard light strumming of a stringed instrument before Pinkie replied in song. "Oh girls, don't you see?"

_"__When I was a little philly and the sun was going doooooooownn."_

"Tell me she's not," Twilight said in disbelief.

_"__the darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frooooooooownn."_

"She is," Rarity confirmed.

"Yeah," Myles put in, "I'd get used to this if I were you."

_"__I'd hide under my pillow, from what I thought I saw_

_But Granny Pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at alllll!"_

"Then what is?" Rainbow wondered out loud.

_"__She said, 'Piiinkie, ya gotta stand up tall, learn to face your fears!_

_You'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh and make them disappeaaaar!"_

Pinkie's dancing had brought her to the base of one of the menacing trees, to which she turned and gave a deliberate "Ha. Ha. HA!" which inexplicably caused the tree's expression to vanish in a puff of smoke, replaced by normal bark one would expect. The girls gasped and Myles' eyebrow twitched in disbelief.

_"__Soooooo- giggle at the ghostly! _One of the girls laughed, causing a tree to return to normal.

_Guffaw at the grossly! _Another girl joined in, reverting more trees.

_Crack-up at the creepy! _And another.

_Whoop-it-up with the weepy! _And another.

_Chortle at the goofy! _ As the rest of the girls joined

_Snortle at the spooky! _More and more trees cleared up with a puff of smoke.

_And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if it thinks it can scare you then it's got another thing coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna… ahahahhahaha! _Myles began chuckling at Pinkie's accelerating lyrics.

_LAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!"_

All of them fell to the ground, overcome with laughter. When they finally relaxed enough to walk again, all the trees looked as normal as they had previously. Pinkie Pie lead the way forward, hopping and giggling along until she abruptly halted in front of a river with a swift current.

From around the bend in the river, they heard echoing cries of discomfort. The girls headed in that direction, but Myles winced and stopped abruptly.

"You okay, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah heheh," Myles replied, "I just remembered something funny and my side still hurts from laughing so much. You go ahead, I'll catch up." Applejack smiled and turned around as he tried to speak through suppressed laughter. As soon as she cleared the trees and was out of sight, Myles winced again and let his saddle bag slide off his back as he examined the large gash on his side. It had stopped bleeding a while ago, but it still stung and itched. On closer examination, Myles spotted a few discolored veins highlighted through his coat in the area around the wound, ranging from light green to a sickly yellow.

"Couldn't resist giving me a parting gift, could you?" Myles muttered back the way they came, not that the manticore would be able to hear him. He leaned his side up to the churning rapids, allowing the water to splash over his wound. He released a sigh as the wound cooled and ceased itching and the water suddenly stopped churning and settled to a calm stream. He hefted his saddle bag back on and walked through the trees after the girls. Seeing a large serpentine creature, he ran up ready to fight, but skidding to a stop as it coiled itself through the water, forming platforms across the stream and saying "Alllllow me." Applejack turned to see Myles standing there puzzled, simply saying "I'll tell ya later," as she began to hop across the makeshift bridge. Myles shrugged and followed.

Through the next patch of trees they came across a canyon. From the front of the group Twilight shouted excitedly. "There it is! The ruin that holds the elements of Harmony! We made it!" She ran ahead, "Twilight!" Applejack called as they tried to catch her before she reached the bridge "We're almost there!" Twilight called back before slipping forwards into the space where the bridge used to be. Rainbow dragged her back by the tail before cracking a smile. "What's with you and falling off cliffs today?"

"Now what?" asked Pinkie pie. "Duh." Rainbow said, giving her wings a flap and taking off. "Oh yeah," Pinkie relaxed as Rainbow flew across the gorge to fix the bridge. The other ledge was partially obscured by fog and Twilight heard voices across the gap, "Rainbow! What's taking so long?" she called out. Then she seemed to spot something, "Oh no, Rainbow!" The fog thickened, "Don't listen to them?"

"Don't listen to who?"

"Somepony was over there with Rainbow Dash! They were three of them keeping her from fixing the bridge."

"We have to-"

The fog cleared as Rainbow flew across the newly repaired bridge. The girls cheered and followed her across as she said "See? I'd never leave my friends hanging!" The bridge shook as Myles crossed with his heavy saddle bag, but he managed to get across without incident and the group made their way into the castle.

Inside, they were greeted by a large plinth with seven orbs, six of them on extensions from the base and the largest situated on the top.

"Woaaaaaah."

"Cmon, Twilight," said Applejack, "isn't this what you've been waitin for?"

"The Elements of Harmony," Twilight said excitedly, "We found them!"

The pegusai brought the outer orbs to the ground.

"Four… five… six… Where's the seventh?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"The book said, when the six are present a spark will cause the seventh element to be revealed." Twilight recited.

"What in the hay is that supposed to mean?" Applejack inquired.

"I'm not sure but I have an idea," Twilight said, "Stand back, I don't know what will happen."

The girls obediently retreated to the outer hall as Applejack instructed quietly, "C'mon now y'all, she needs to concentrate." Myles turned and leaned against the door, determined to see the elements work.

Twilights horn glowed purple but suddenly the magic smoke Myles had seen earlier wrapped around the elements and lifted them up. "Twilight! Look out!" He attempted to warn her as he galloped into the room. "The Elements!" Twilight cried and leapt into the smoke, which had begun rotating like a twister, moments later Myles leapt after her. The rest of the girls had heard the shouts but arrived just in time to see the twister vanish along with Twilight, Myles and the elements.

Twilight coughed as she appeared in another section of the castle, Myles rolled as he landed, his saddle bag coming free and scattering crystals across the floor. Twilight gasped and got ready to charge. Myles looked to see what she was facing down and spotted Nightmare Moon laughing as the elements orbited her. Seeing Twilights action, Nightmare laughed, "You're kidding, right?"

As Twilight charged, Myles struggled to his feet, sharp pains from his side slowing him down. Nightmare Moon matched Twilights charge, but Twilights horn began to glow. Right before they collided, Twilight disappeared in a flash and reappeared in between the elements. She seemed a little disoriented. Myles walked over to place himself in-between Twilight and Nightmare Moon.

"Out of the way, foal." Nightmare growled as Myles heard Twilight muttering behind him about "one spark." Suddenly she formed herself into a twister and flew over Myles, striking the ground next to the elements and causing Twilights spell to backfire, throwing her skidding across the floor.

"NO!" Nightmare Moon cried, as the elements arced magical charge from one to the next. Suddenly, the magic faded away. Nightmare Moon laughed and Twilight gasped, "Where's the seventh element?" Stamping her hooves into the ground, Nightmare Moon shattered the elements and laughed even harder.

"You little foals, thinking you could defeat me? Now you'll never see your princess, or your sun! The night… will last… FOREVER!" Nightmare Moon resumed her laughing as Myles once again stood between her and Twilight.

"…no…" he managed to gasp out between heavy breaths, he was feeling weak, but he stood still as a rock.

Nightmare Moon chuckled, "What was that?"

"No. It won't," Myles coughed, "Forever is a long time. You won't get anything even close to forever. This ends now."

"And who will stop me? You?!" Nightmare Moon chuckled, "You won't last long. The manticore venom running through your veins will make sure you perish without me having to lift a single hoof!" He heard Twilight gasp behind him. "I rule the night and now, the night is unstoppable!"

"Not," he began. Myles's horn glowed bright blue-gray, his voice shook, but he remained standing.

"While," he panted. Twilight heard a humming sound.

"I." The hum built in pitch and Twilight saw the crystals on the floor begin to shake.

"Breathe!" Myles shouted the last word and Twilight placed her head beneath her hooves as the crystals hum built to a fever pitch. Shards of crystal shot in all directions, blinding Nightmare Moon and blasting her backwards off of the platform she was standing on. She let out a scream as a million shards of crystal blasted past her and cut her flanks. Twilight opened her eyes to see Nightmare Moon and Myles panting with exhaustion. Nightmare had countless small cuts, but none of the shards seemed to pierce her middle. Myles shuddered and grunted. Twilight then noticed the layer of floating crystal shards hovering in a shell around her. They ranged from pebble sized to actual dust, but Myles let out a gasp and the shell fell harmlessly to the ground around her.

Twilight heard the other ponies shouting from the stairwell and suddenly she had the answer she'd been looking for. She rose to her hooves and defiantly stared Nightmare Moon down. "You think you can destroy the elements of Harmony just like that?" For the first time, Nightmare Moon looked apprehensive. "Well you're wrong, because the spirits of the elements of Harmony… are right here!" She shouted as the others came to a stop behind her, ready to come to her defense. The shards of the elements of harmony rose into the air, each stone staying together with its other pieces and floating to the ponies who had arrived. "What?" Nightmare Moon asked.

"Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of… Honesty!" One of the elements floated over and orbited Applejack.

"Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of …Kindness!" Another element orbited Fluttershy.

"Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of… Laughter!" Another element joined Pinkie.

"Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of… Generosity!"

"Rainbow Dash, who would not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire, represents the spirit of… Loyalty!"

"And Myles, who kept fighting when his mind and body tried to hold him back, represents the spirit of… Perseverance!" Myles glanced at the element floating around him before returning his irritated gaze to Nightmare Moon.

"The spirits of these six ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us!"

"You still don't have the seventh element!" Nightmare reasoned, though her expression betrayed her fear, "the spark didn't work!"

"But it did," Twilight continued "A different kind of spark. I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you," she turned to each of her friends as she spoke, "to see you! How much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me, when I realized that you all… are my friends!" A light shone from above their heads as the final element manifested at Twilights words.

"You see, Nightmare Moon, when those elements are ignited by the… spark… that resides in the heart of us all it creates the seventh element, the element of… magic!" With this, every element reformed and bonded to its bearer, the light emitted from them all brightened and formed a rainbow of magical energy that shot towards Nightmare Moon. Twilight opened her eyes, bathing the chamber in light as they heard Nightmare Moon cry, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Myles opened his eyes and looked behind him, where he saw all his friends safely intact and wearing the reformed elements of Harmony. He glanced down and saw a new bracer formed out of crystal attached to his right front foreleg, it had an emblem of his cutie mark which briefly shone with light. He his legs shake and fell onto his side, wincing with pain as his eyes closed. The crystal shards were all gone, apparently used to form the rest of his element. Despite the pain, he relaxed on the smooth cold stone of the floor. As the world spun he saw his friends run to his side just before everything went black.

"I assure you, Miss Sparkle," a strange voice said, "He will recover, but right now he needs rest!"

Myles groaned and sat up, "I can rest later, doc," he rubbed his side, which had been bandaged up, and turned to Twilight and the others, who were standing in the hall outside his hospital room, "What happened?" Twilight and the others pushed past the doctor, hugging Myles so tightly it aggravated his cut, but not enough to bother him. Myles was more preoccupied with the warm feeling filling his heart as his friends embraced him. When they released him, Twilight smirked and asked "Do you want the long version or the short version?"

Myles leaned back, "Got time for the long version?"

"I should hope so, I live here now." Twilight grinned.

Myles smiled widely and turned to Pinkie Pie, "I missed the party again didn't I." Pinkie Pie nodded a little sadly.

"Don't worry, I'll be at the next one," he turned back to Twilight, "I'll have the long version."

"Promise not to interrupt?" She raised an eyebrow.

He grinned again, "Promise."

**Phew, that took about eight times longer than I thought it would. It also turned out different than when I started, which is awesome. I like it when ideas come as you're writing. It's almost as satisfying as something I planned beforehand. **

**I'm leaving the rating at T for violence at least. I'm not sure if I was a little too descriptive of Myles' wound, so if I get complaints, I'll change it. Initially it was there for the fact that I hadn't yet decided whether or not the adult manticore had survived when I wrote the first episode. However, when watching the second episode over again, I realized I had completely forgotten that manticores have wings, so having it perish by going over a cliff didn't seem right. I briefly toyed with the idea of making it the parent of the baby manticore from the episode, but having the baby follow it around didn't make any sense, so I just decided to make the fully grown one the only one. And yes I skipped Rarity's act of kindness, because I had just typed out Pinkie Pie's song and didn't want to get bogged down in dialogue again. Besides, Myles had other problems that needed addressing. I also made him detonate most of his crystal collection, which wasn't part of the plan when I started. Ah well. I'll address that when it comes up. This is fun so far, but after this chapter I'm gonna start spreading the work out so I'm not spending all afternoon typing an episode.**

**Hopefully I actually do get a response this time, if not, eh, I guess I just added something no one will enjoy to the internet. Ugh. Like when I started that YouTube channel, or that other thing, or that other thing.**

**Gonna wrap this up before I make myself sad.**

**-Dr Spacewizard Esq.**


	3. Chapter 3

**New chapter, away!**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

The Ticket Master or Reflection of Disappointment

"The venom has been completely eliminated from your system and the wound itself will heal within the next couple of days so long as you leave it alone."

"Anything else I need to know?" Myles asked the doctor casually.

"Yes," the doctor narrowed his eye at him, "next time you get poisoned, and in your line of work there WILL BE a next time, seek medical attention immediately and do not, under any circumstances, fight long imprisoned evils whilst carrying your weight in rocks."

"Crystals," Myles corrected then smirked, "What about slightly old evils? Like a couple hundred years at most and maybe carrying a few things, but nothing too extreme."

"This is no laughing matter, Mr. Sharsold."

"Shardsole," Myles corrected.

"Right," The doctor rolled his eyes, "My point is, you exacerbated an already dangerous condition by exerting yourself both physically and magically. Overexerting yourself to the degree that you had is dangerous without a dose of manticore venom, you're lucky to be alive."

"I'm sure," Myles frowned, "How'd I exert myself magically? I barely used any magic."

"Ms. Twilight seems to disagree. As do the numerous small lacerations on your flanks. If what I've heard is true, you detonated a couple of hundred crystals simultaneously and also used magic to shield two others at the same time."

"It doesn't take much to make the crystals explode, doc."

"That may be, but with that many and you casting shields in two separate locations, well that would overexert most unicorns. It's not safe to use that much magic that fast."

"Can't use it slow, doc," Myles scowled and tapped his horn, "Horn gives out if I take too long."

"Yes, I've been informed of your preexisting… condition and frankly that makes my warning all the more important, you've never used magic of that magnitude before and it's my medical opinion that you never should again, for you own safety of course. Do you understand?"

"Yeah yeah, I get it."

"Myles, this is very important, this could mean your life someday. I need to hear that you aren't going to be purposefully endangering yourself."

"No promises, doc," Myles smirked as he pushed open the front doors of the hospital and galloped back home.

Myles tapped the crystal strapped to his arm, bringing up the image of the Everfree forest's perimeter, then stuck a hoof through the barrier and looked down to see the hoof represented on the image. Satisfied that the system was still working, he returned home. He took a look around and frowned. Trotting over to his trunk, he found a few loose crystals at the bottom. He'd wanted to start testing out new spell combinations right away, but he'd expended almost all of his supply on Nightmare Moon. He briefly considered writing to Princess Luna, who Twilight had informed him had recovered and reformed after being hit with the elements of Harmony, but considering what he'd done with the last bunch, he had a feeling that asking either Princess for a replacement supply would be awkward. On the other hoof, he also had no idea how he would acquire more crystals. He'd have to make do with what he had for now.

Perhaps if he used the same harmonic resonance that he had to make the perimeter crystals communicate with the one on his arm to link some of them together, he could make them do more complicated work and use less of them in the long run. It was a sound theory, but he needed crystals to test it on, which brings him back to his original problem.

The Mayor had apologized for her previous rudeness and even paid him a moderate bonus for his part in stopping Nightmare Moon and setting up an early warning system around the Everfree forest. However, it still wasn't enough to cover the cost of buying a trunkful of crystals, even if he picked them up himself. The only workable solution at the moment was finding a local supply, he decided to visit the girls in town and ask if they knew of one. Twilight hadn't lived here long, but she lived in the library and spent most of her time reading, she may have come across a record of somepony finding crystals around here. The others had lived here long enough he thought they might've stumbled across some themselves.

He put on his saddlebag, making sure it covered the bandaged area around his middle, then set off for the library, figuring a historical record would be more reliable. As he passed through the center of town, he heard a bit of a commotion one street over and decided to see what it was. Myles was still unused to his newfound freedom and hadn't had much time to exercise it during his recovery. Technically he was on call at all times, but so long as he stayed in town he was only a short gallop away from responding to any emergencies, so visiting his new friends was actually a possibility. Friends, the word still seemed out of place to him. Sure he'd known ponies such as Applejack and Pinkie Pie for almost a year now, but until recently they were just ponies he interacted with when he needed something or because he couldn't avoid it. The fact that they now greeted him warmly and tried to include him in their social lives still unnerved him, but at the same time it felt nice to know others cared about him outside his capacity to protect the town. It was a feeling he hadn't had in years and on the last occasions he remembered it only led to the painful experiences that made him avoid ponies today, but he had a hope, however small, that things would be different this time. Of course, he reminded himself that on all previous occasions he had also held out hope only to have it backfire on him. Myles shook his head and made his way over to the next street.

At the center of the commotion was Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle and while Myles thought the first's inclusion was a given, the second's involvement piqued his curiosity. Pinkie was singing and dancing for reasons only known to her, but stopped as Myles approached and heard her say, "Oh thank you Twilight! It's the most wonderfullest gift ever!"

Twilight appeared to be heavily debating how to reply and only managed to get as far as "Um, actually…" before a gasp caught the three's attention.

"Are these what I think they are?" Rarity asked with a hopeful smile.

"Uh-"

"Yes. Yes! YES!" Pinkie Pie spoke up, "Twilight's taking me to the Grand Galloping Gala at Canterlot." Myles raised an eyebrow, not sure how to react to this. Twilight and Pinkie going to the gala together? Something seemed off about this and he had a feeling Twilight hadn't had much say in the matter, if her expression was any indication. He was about to speak up when Rarity replied.

"The gala! I design ensembles for the gala every year! But I've never had the opportunity to attend. Ohhhhh, the society, the culture, the glamour," Rarity seemed lost in her own imagination already but continued without waiting for a response, "It's where I truly belong and where I'm destined to meet… HIM!" she ended by lifting her eyes to the sky and looking at some vision only she could see.

"Him!" Pinkie repeated excitedly before looking confused, "Who?"

"Him…" Rarity was barely aware of her own surroundings as she launched into another daydream. Myles couldn't resist waving a hoof in front of her eyes to see if she'd notice and suppressing a snicker when she didn't. Pinkie giggled a little but Twilight met his eye with a frown.

Rarity continued, oblivious to everything else, "I would stroll through the gala, everyone would wonder, 'Who is that mysterious mare?' They would never guess, that I was just a simple pony from little old Ponyville. Why, I would cause such a sensation, that I would be invited for an audience with Princess Celestia herself! And the Princess would be so taken with the style and elegance, that she would introduce me… to HIM! Her nephew, the most handsome eligible unicorn stallion in Canterlot! Our eyes would meet, our hearts would melt, our courtship would be maaaaaaaagnificent! He would ask for my hoof in marriage and of course I'd say, 'YES!' We would have a royal wedding, befitting a princess, which is a-hmmm, what I would become upon marrying him!" Myles now had both his front hooves covering his mouth to prevent any sound from escaping at this point. "The stallion of my dreams…"

Rarity seemed to come back to reality and address Twilight directly, missing Myles' presence altogether, "Twilight, I simply cannot believe you would invite Pinkie Pie so she can…party… and then prevent me from meeting my true love! Howwwwww could you? HMPH!" She turned her back to stalk away angrily as Myles and Pinkie finally failed to contain their laughter. She whipped her head around at the sudden noise and glared daggers at the two of them. "What's so funny?!" she asked indignantly.

"I dunno," Pinkie Pie admitted in between giggles, "seeing someone laugh just gets me started too!"

Myles managed to take a deep breath, "AHHhhhhhehheh- hahaha. Hehee. Ohhhh that's the best thing I've heard in years… ha hehe. Heh… heh…" He looked at the others, Twilight meeting him with a grim expression, Rarity looked furious and Pinkie Pie simply smiled back at him until his own smile faded somewhat. "What? You don't honestly think that's going to happen do you? You're just joking… right…?" He asked with increasingly less mirth as two of the three girls glared at him (Pinkie settled for blowing a raspberry and giggling).

Before anyone could speak, a small white rabbit snatched the tickets from Spike's claw, who finally reacted after having watched Rarity's speech with disbelief. "Hey!" The rabbit ignored him and hopped over to Fluttershy, who had been attending to business of her own down the street. Her eye's widened as she spotted the tickets before turning to join the group. Myles took the opportunity to speak with Rarity.

"Rarity," she turned her back to him, but he continued regardless, "Look, I'm sorry, I thought you were joking, it just sounded so… unrealistic…" Rarity shot him a glare, "Not that it can't happen!" He corrected quickly, "I just don't want you to be disappointed if it doesn't happen exactly how you think it will." He finished with a sad look. Rarity looked ready to reply but instead spun to face Twilight when she said "Uhhhh, listen guys, I haven't decided who to give the extra ticket to."

"You haven't?!" Pinkie and Rarity said in hopeful unison.

"Um, excuse me," they heard Fluttershy, barely, from behind them and turned again, "I would just like to ask, I mean, if it would be alright, if you haven't given it to someone else…"

"You?!" Rarity seemed equally as offended as when Myles had laughed at her dream, "You want to go to the gala?!"

"Um, no," Fluttershy whispered, the rabbit tapped his foot on her hoof, "I mean, yes, or actually, kind of, you see, it's not so much the grand galloping gala, as it is the wondrous garden…" Myles shifted uneasily and began to walk away when he felt a tug on his tail, he looked back to see it ringed with a purple glow and looked to see Twilight shaking her head at him. He sighed and sat back, unsure what he was waiting for exactly, only knowing that it would be uncomfortable. "…and pink flamingos!" Fluttershy finished. Twilight began to speak up, but was cut off by Rainbow Dash, who herself was cut off by Applejack. The situation quickly degenerated into an argument between all the girls save Twilight, who merely crouched in the middle with her hooves over her head in distress. With all of the people he had intended to talk to present, Myles realized he wasn't getting answers until this argument was resolved.

"That's ENOUGH!" Myles shouted, silencing everypony but Pinkie Pie, who continued briefly, "And then I said, oatmeal? Are you craz-Oh." She too fell silent and joined the others in staring at him.

"Look, I'm sure you all have very important reasons to want to go to the gala," he made a point of casting what he hoped was an apologetic look at Rarity, who's expression seemed to soften a little, "but it's Twilight's decision, not yours, so shouting at each other isn't helping anypony." Rarity seemed a little disappointed, perhaps she had thought Myles was going to argue on her behalf for a moment.

"He's right girls, there's no use in arguing," Twilight said, Rarity came forward and began, "But Twiligh-" "EH!" Twilight cut her off. "This is my decision, and I'm going to make it on my own, and I certainly can't think straight with all this noise!" Her stomach grumbled loudly. "Not to mention hunger! Now go on, shoo!" The girls grumbled and dejectedly walked off as Twilight added, "And don't worry, I'll figure this out! …somehow…" then she looked up at Myles, anger flaring in her eyes again, "And YOU! How could you laugh at Rarity's dream like that?" Myles immediately stood, preparing to run if necessary before defending himself.

"C'mon Twilight, I had no idea she was serious! You heard her, she's going to show up at the gala and then just instantly fall in love with royalty? It sounds like an old ponytale!"

"So did the Mare in the Moon," Twilight said, "And I suggest you go apologize."

"I already did," Myles objected.

"Well go do it again! I've got thinking to do." She turned to walk away before turning stopping with a frustrated look on her face, "Alright let's hear it."

Myles was confused, "Hear… what exactly?"

"Why do you want the extra ticket, the decision's not going to be any easier, but I can't just leave a friend out of the running."  
>"Okay, I know I just got into trouble for this but in all seriousness…" Myles cast a sideways glance at her, "are YOU joking?"<p>

"No," Twilight's eyes narrowed. Myles spoke up again before she could vent her anger on him.

"Okay then, I appreciate the consideration but… how do I put this?" Myles thought for a moment, "I wouldn't go near the gala with a forty foot magical barrier protecting me."

"Hmmph, just like Spike then? Too girly for you?"

Myles was taken aback, "What? No, I…"

Twilight stomped away in anger, muttering under her breath. Myles just shook his head in disbelief and headed for Rarity's shop.

"Rarity," Myles called tentatively as he knocked on her door, hoping he had the right house. He certainly couldn't think of anyone else who'd have those creepy mannequins in their home by choice but the town's dressmaker. He was busy examining the one closest to the window when the mare in question burst through her front door and ran past without a second look. "Rarity!" Myles called, but she ran on, evidently not hearing him. He noticed she wore an umbrella, a choice that perplexed him until he heard a distant crack of thunder and saw a group of pegasai pushing large dark clouds towards the town. He elected to stand beneath the awning over her front door and wait for her to return, since he had no umbrella of his own at home.

Myles spotted her dragging Twilight through the rain and once again tried to get her attention when she blew past him, throwing the door open and pushing Twilight inside, subsequently splashing the water from a nearby puddle into Myles' face before shutting herself inside. "Okay," he admitted to no one in particular, "I probably deserved that." He sat there, frowning and dripping as he heard Rarity create a noisy fuss over Twilight, no doubt in her bid to get the ticket. The rain finally let up and the door opened to reveal Twilight looking frustrated as before, Myles began to raise a hoof to get Rarity's attention when Applejack rolled up with a cart full of food, skidding to a stop in front of Rarity's door with a call of "Did somepony say lunch?" and again splashing the adjacent puddle into Myles' face. Applejack dragged Twilight across the threshold to her cart while Myles spat out the water that got in his mouth when he'd opened it to call Rarity. Applejack and Twilight had a small argument before leaving, Myles ignored it, taking the opportunity to speak with Rarity, who had arrived at the door.

"Oh, are you still here?" She said with a grim look, and attempted to pull the door closed before Myles placed a hoof out to stop it.

"Rarity, I'm sorry okay?"

"So you said," Rarity scoffed, attempting to shut the door, Myles stood his ground, keeping the door open.

"I MEAN it!" Myles pleaded, "Look, I don't want you holding a grudge over this, I'm not used to trying to consider everypony's feelings before I talk."

"Clearly," Rarity crossed her hooves over her chest.

"It just sounded so ridiculous, I thought you weren't serious."

"Yes, clearly to a pony like you, the concept of finding love must seem absolutely ludicrous."

"That's not what I …what?"

"Just because you are too stubborn to believe in anything doesn't mean I have to be."

"That's not even what… what?" Myles looked genuinely confused now as he took his hoof off of the door.

"If you still don't understand, perhaps you should go think about it for a month or so… on your own." She reached for her door.

"Whatever, it's not like the Princess ever talks to anyone at the gala anyways…" Myles turned away.

"How would you know?" Rarity called after him with a scoff.

"The Princess invited me last year," Myles said over his shoulder, "Only time I got to speak with her was when she said hello, then she was too busy greeting everypony else. And everypony else was too stuck up to talk to a washed up student of magic. She said attending would make me feel better, but all it did was make me despise everyone in Canterlot, it was a colossal waste of time." Myles kicked some dirt with his hoof before looking up at Rarity, who stood in her doorway with a look of shock on her face.

"You… you've been to the gala?" She asked, still disbelieving.

"Yeah," Myles got up and walked off as he replied, "Wish I hadn't though. Got my hopes up and then just ended the night miserable anyways." He stopped and cast a nervous glance back to her, "Um… it'll go differently for you though, I'm sure of it, pretty mare like you, I'm sure you'll find someone fantastic and have a lot of fun anyways. Well, goodnight."

Rarity mumbled a soft goodnight, staying frozen to the spot until she left for the library.

Myles went back to his house, giving the perimeter a quick check as he crossed the threshold. He set down his saddlebag and grabbed a towel from the bathroom, drying the remainder of the rainwater off of his mane and bandages and then stopping in front of the trunk with a sigh. He picked out the crystals remaining on the bottom and placed them on his worktable. Myles was able to try a few dozen spell combinations before falling asleep on the table again.

Myles woke with a start as he heard a knock at his door. He glanced at the clock and wondered vaguely who would be here so late. He was still groggy, but woke up a bit more when he opened the door and realized who it was.

"R'rty?" Myles speech came out almost indistinguishable as a word, his jaw still sore from lying sideways on the table. Myles was brought fully awake when Rarity threw her hooves around his neck and hugged him tightly. After a moment of shock, he managed an "Uhhhh…" before Rarity pulled away.

"Myles," she looked concerned with her greeting, as if wondering what was appropriate to say, "I'm…. dreadfully sorry for the way I treated you earlier. I accept your apology and I hope you will accept mine. I had no idea you had attended the gala in the past, but even so, I shouldn't have said… what I said about you, no matter what, it's not ladylike and it's certainly not true. I'm sure this year's gala will go differently for you, you represent an element of Harmony and know how to work crystal magic, you're far more important than those stuck up ponies in Canterlot can ever be. And you may just meet somepony you like there… what am I saying, handsome stallion like yourself, of course you will." She looked at him critically for a moment. "You know, if you smile a bit while you're there. None of this grumpy stuff you have now and certainly not this!" She said, throwing the towel he hadn't realized he was still wearing across his neck back into his house and fluffing up his mane a bit, "There you go. Looks great that way."

Myles stood with his jaw open for a moment before replying, "But Rarity, I didn't get a ticket to this year's gala and even if I did, I'm not sure I'd want to go."

"Well that's just awful… You mean the rest of the girls and I will be there but you won't?" She held out a ticket to him. "Twilight wrote the Princess about her situation," she explained as he examined the ticket, "Told her that if she had to choose between which friends to take, she wouldn't be attending at all. Well the Princess wrote right back asking why she hadn't said sooner, and sent tickets for all of us, even Spike," Rarity giggled to herself. She looked sadder as she turned back to Myles. "You're not going to make us go to such an awful party alone are you?"

Myles sighed, "I suppose not, but don't say I didn't warn you!" He spoke up in mock scolding, causing Rarity to laugh. She hugged him again and they both gave their goodnights. Myles smiled to himself as he placed the ticket underneath his music crystal, which briefly played as he moved it. With those girls there, it certainly wouldn't be as boring as last year's gala.

**Woah. Once again, I started this chapter with some specifics in mind and ended up with something not at all like my idea. Initially I was just going to use this chapter to smooth over some blatant plotholes I left in the second episode. I didn't mean to leave them there either, but when I reviewed the episode the ending didn't really have an opening for Myles to talk one on one with anyone present. The Princess has to reconcile with Luna and decree that Twilight stays in Ponyville, as well as explain that she knew all along about Nightmare Moon's impending return. There wasn't really a place for Myles to be there where he wouldn't interrupt and bring up a HEAPLOAD of exposition at the end of the story, and that story had already turned out longer than I expected. Looking back at this one, I still haven't addressed the plotholes much (Myles' sudden ability to use heavy amounts of magic notwithstanding) but I will get to them sometime. For now, I like how this turned out, where I went from loosely tying his problems into the episodes plot to making him a larger part of it, without having to retype a whole lot of the dialogue from this episode. I'm still a bit tired of that from the first episode, but since I'll be trying to pace myself better starting with this episode, I'll probably be able to make Myles part of the main plot in the future.**

**Then again, when I started typing this chapter, Myles wasn't going to be able to remember Rarity's name and was going to ignore her as much as possible. Look how that turned out. Hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot for the actual episode of the gala, still, only Rarity knows about Myles experience there so far and it definitely won't stop her from being stupid around Prince Blueblood. And then Prince Blueblood will never be mentioned again. Maybe seen in the background, I'm not sure, but acknowledged as actually being royalty? Pfft, nope. I'm thinking either the princess shipped him somewhere where he couldn't bother anyone or Queen Chrysalis stashed him in the caves below Canterlot and everyone else just … forgot to look for him. Almost feel sorry for him. **

**I'll get those plotholes filled as best I can though. I'm still trying to figure out how much to say, since I'm planning on saving a lot of things for the return of the Crystal Empire, obviously. Still, I don't want that episode to be all exposition either, so I'll have to get some of the ground rules said out loud before then. I do have a specific way for crystal magic to work outlined in my mind, it's getting it all out there while still keeping the story fun that troubles me.**

**-Dr Spacewizard Esq.**


	4. Chapter 4

**HA! Another chapter! Didn't see that one coming did you?**

**Hope you aren't expecting those explanations I promised this chapter, sadly there isn't much opportunity for those subjects to come up in this story. Then again, who knows these never turn out the way I expect. On the other hand, there's not much incentive to fill out my plot when I can't even tell if anyone's enjoying this. If this keeps up, I may just write out the first season and post it whenever it's done, which would be sometime next year.**

**Still don't own My Little Pony.**

Applebuck Season or Hidden Stone

Myles wasn't exactly certain where he was. From observation only two things could be determined. First, his surroundings were comprised almost entirely of crystal and second, they were all humming as if they were filled with magic. Each had its own pitch and pulse, thrumming to a beat that could be heard by no one. The effect was similar to hearing an orchestra warm up, each practicing a part clearly meant to be played in harmony with the others, but starting at different times and none of them synchronized with the others at the moment.

If he listened, Myles could hear the melodies of each and their individual beauty. Taken as a whole, the chorus of magical sound was irritating on more than one level. Myles shook his head in frustration, he couldn't begin to think of a way to fix the problem or fathom its purpose even if he wanted to. At the moment he was more concerned with how he got here and more importantly answering his first question. With no answer forthcoming, he voiced his concern out loud.

"Where am I?" he asked, still wincing from the noise.

"We know not where this is supposed to be, only that, in the physical sense, you are not actually here."

Myles spun around to face the voice, which didn't seem to have trouble making itself heard over the din of the crystals. His horn lit up and he lowered into a fighting stance as he prepared to fight the familiar looking alicorn with a dark blue coat and night sky instead of a mane. The mare in question raised her hoof.

"Stay your magic, Myles Shardsole," she replied quickly, "we've tasted it's sting before and we do not wish to again."

"What do you want, Nightmare?" Myles shouted, grinding his hooves against the crystal beneath him. The alicorn looked shocked for a moment, then smiled.

"Calm yourself," she pleaded, "We have changed, as we had thought you were informed. But we had forgotten that you had not seen us afterwards. You know us only as Nightmare Moon and given your strange surroundings, you are right to be suspicious, but we assure you no harm will come to you. We are now the Princess Luna, as we were a long time ago. You are dreaming," she smiled a bit, "except where I am concerned."

"So what you are saying is everything here is my dream but you are somehow here for real? Care to explain why? Or how?"

Luna smiled gently, "Twilight and my sister were correct, you are deceptively bright despite how you act."

Myles thought about this for a few moments, "Ummmm… thanks?"

Luna laughed, not the harsh maniacal cackle of Nightmare Moon, but a gentle chortle of royalty. Myles finally sat back on his haunches to hear her out.

"As Princess of the Night, we watch over everything that takes place in our domain, including the dreams of ponies as they sleep. It is our right and also our responsibility." She intoned sadly.

"Wait," Myles cocked an eyebrow, "I thought you became Nightmare Moon because you were upset that your subjects slept through the night, if you could just visit their dreams, what was the big deal?"

She frowned slightly, "As we said, it is also our responsibility. We watch over their dreams at night. They are not always aware of this and many cannot be convinced that we are not part of the dream as well. It can become tiresome, to say the least."

Myles looked a little ashamed for bringing it up, "Sorry."

She smiled once more, "It is not a problem," her face grew serious once more, "In fact we could say we deserved more, which is, in part at least, why we are here. When we were freed from our own corruption in the form of Nightmare Moon, we had the chance to meet your friends, the other elements of Harmony, as well as reconcile our argument with our sister. You, however, were still recovering, and we thought visiting your dreams in that state would be…" she smiled nervously, "…unwise. Besides, we had our own wounds to recover from, though much less severe."

"Huh," Myles grinned, "You're right in one part, I probably would've attacked you on the spot at the time. As for your injuries, I'm sorr-" Luna held up a hoof to stop him again.

"We will hear no more apologies from you," Luna said firmly, "We are at fault here, you defended your friends and your actions were more than justified, not to mention admirable. Our injuries are healed and the only lasting mark is here," she turned to show him a scar above her cutie mark on her left flank. Myles realized for the first time he was speaking to royalty, worse yet, he had marked her forever. "I'm-"

"SILENCE!" Luna shouted with unnatural volume, causing Myles to tense again, "We are sorry, but as we said, we will hear no more apologies from you," she trotted over and place a hoof gently on his head, "we will wear the mark with humility, as a constant reminder of the time we let our selfish desire overcome our compassion for our subjects and a further reminder that even an alicorn is not truly all-powerful." She sat down in front of him as he raised his head again.

"Because of that little scratch?" Myles asked in disbelief.

"There was much more damage at the time and believe us when we say leaving a lasting mark on one such as ourselves is extremely difficult. You were not the first to make such an attempt, nor do we fear, will you be the last. We are told expending such energy as you did would end many unicorns and that you did so despite a lifelong hindrance to your magic as well as while under the effects of manticore venom. You risked the most of all your friends… and we never even got to speak to you. To apologize for the trouble we caused you," her head drooped in sadness, "and to thank you for your more than significant contribution to freeing us." She placed her hooves around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. He could only sit there with his eyes wide in shock until she released him.

"We must attend to our duties. We leave you to finish your dream at your leisure. We only ask that you do not underestimate your own strength, as it may once again prove invaluable to the safety of those around you."

"Why does everypony say that? I'm not strong at al-"

Luna turned away from him, once again displaying the scar on her flank and began to walk away and fade from his sight.

"You were not the first to try and mark us, Shardsole, but you were the first to succeed. Your strength is proven to the world, whether you believe in it yourself or not."

Myles eyes snapped open. He sat up and shook his head. Had any of that been real? Had he really disfigured Princess Luna? He had been getting tired of telling everypony that he didn't have exceptional talent or strength of magic, which was something he had known since he was little, but for the first time he wondered if there was something to what all of them said. He sighed and tried to clear his head of worry as he made himself some breakfast.

He elected to have another try at asking the girls if they knew of any crystal deposits and headed for the middle of town. He stopped when he saw a large see-saw and a diving platform in the town square. His eyes bugged out in shock as he saw Applejack leap from the diving platform and launch what appeared to be a heap of Rainbow Dash skywards. The launch was effective, but the pegasus seemed to never regain control of her flight throughout the arc. Myles galloped over to Applejack, who seemed to be have fallen asleep on the see-saw, and gently prodded her with a hoof.

"Applejack?"

"Huh?" the orange pony seemed disoriented to say the least, but after a time she spotted Myles, "Oh hey Myles, what's goin' on?"

"That's what I was going to ask you." Myles said, gesturing towards the diving board and see-saw with a hoof.

"Oh, this?" Applejack answered groggily, "I was just helping Rainbow Dash practice her fancy flyin tricks." She looked around idly for the pegasus. "Guess she's done, I better get back to buckin'"

"What?"

"It's Applebuck Season! I got a whole orchard to harvest all by my lonesome. But you just hold your horses right now!" she said, looking suspiciously at him, "I already done told Twilight I didn't need any help, so I don't want to hear any of it from y'all." She stalked off in anger at something he hadn't even said. She seemed determined to prove him wrong despite him not having had a chance to express any opinion one way or the other. Myles thought of how stubborn she seemed and realized it was a lost cause. It would be a waste of energy for both of them to spend time arguing over the point.

Myles sighed, on the other hoof, Applejack had always been nice to him even before they became friends and he had long lost track of how much he owed her for those early morning breakfasts he had gotten from her before the market opened so he could go back to watching the forest. There was no doubt in his mind that he owed her a great debt. He thought for a minute or so, leaning against the diving board, then suddenly smiling and taking off at a gallop towards Sweet Apple Acres, silently glad he had brought along what few crystals he still owned.

When he arrived, he discovered a disgruntled Applejack arguing with Twilight Sparkle over the very subject that she had brought up to Myles in town. He kept his distance and went around a hill to stay out of their sight. Applejack was about halfway through the orchard she was working on, but on the other side of the hill there was another that she had completely forgotten about for the moment. Myles resolved to begin here, as the hill would keep his work concealed for the longest possible time and judging by the amount of sleep Applejack seemed to have lost, he would need all the time he could get. Over the past years, Myles had become accustomed to operating on minimal sleep, he would presumably be able to work longer than her, the trouble was it wasn't work he was accustomed to.

He snuck around to the barn and grabbed one of the basket mounts that he'd seen Applejack use to harvest her crops in the past, he took out two crystals and directed his magic towards them, tuning the magic as the crystals emitted a wavering hum. Once he was satisfied, he inserted them in between the threads of the bottom of each basket and set the mount on his back.

As he made his way towards the door, he nearly gasped as they swung open. Myles dove behind a bale of old hay and squashed himself up against it. He could hear Applejack mumbling in anger nearby, "Already got enough work without her interrupting every time. Now I gotta go bake those whosewhatsits with Pinkie Pie and I didn't even get a single bushel of apples collected." Myles held his breath as another basket mount flew over his head and landed behind the bale of hay. He waited until he heard the barn door slam before inhaling in relief. Getting up, he walked around to the barn door and pushed.

It wouldn't open. Evidently no amount of sleep deprivation would prevent Applejack from following her habit of locking the barn up while she was away. Myles scowled, he had wasted enough time sneaking around and he definitely didn't want to have to explain himself to Applejack when she found him locked in. He considered bucking the doors open, but if he did the lock would break and Applejack would likely panic and think she'd been robbed. He thought for a moment before digging through his saddlebag, he had a few crystals left, but from in here he couldn't think of a way to use them without damaging anything. Just as he was about to turn away and search the barn for other options, a point of light inside his bag caught his eye. It was a tiny fragment of crystal that he recognized as the one he'd detonated just prior to meeting Twilight. He smiled fondly at the memory as he dug around in the bag for more fragments, finding four more of similar size. He enchanted them all with a simple levitation spell, but left it deactivated at the moment as he pushed them under the gap between the barn door and the ground.

Listening for their distinct hum by placing his ear against the barn door, he lifted one towards the area where the lock was, halting when he heard a small sound of it impacting metal. He tried several times and got the same response until finally one time the sound of the crystal became tinny and echoed from inside the keyhole. Smiling, he lifted the crystal into the lock until he felt some resistance, then pushed against it until he heard a tiny click. One tumbler down, he activated that crystal's levitation spell to keep it in place. He repeated the process with two of the other crystals and then used the last to push the lock free. Grinning from ear to ear, he pushed the door open gently and stepped outside, carefully collecting his crystals and re-locking the door behind him, he headed off to the field over the hill. On the way, he ducked behind a ridge to hide from Applejack, who was clearly on the way back to the barn.

Approaching the first tree, he listened carefully for any movement nearby, satisfied that Applejack was out of earshot, he turned around and bucked his back legs at it's trunk. He heard a small crack and some bark came free from the tree trunk, a few apples fell but as they did the crystals in his baskets hummed a bit, rolling the apples into the basket as though there were an invisible funnel extending from the tops of each one. He adjusted himself and aimed his second kick higher up at the tree. The entire top shook and about half the apples came down. Myles grinned, this wouldn't be so bad.

Myles continued for several hours, only pausing when he'd filled his baskets and emptying them into the barrels he'd brought out, mirroring Applejack's process he'd observed on the other field. He hid at one point when he heard Applejack arguing with somepony again, likely Twilight, but since they didn't come over the hill, he resumed where he left off. He made his way through about half the orchard before he began to grow tired. The combined exertion of kicking the trees hard enough to drop the apples and carrying the weight of twin baskets filled with them over to where they were stored took its toll on him. The afternoon dragged on and he made his way through about three quarters of the field before finally slumping against the trunk of the tree he was at and dozing off.

Myles thought he heard voices at a distance and wondered vaguely why his bed felt so hard.

"How do you like THEM apples," a deep voice said, then gasped in surprise.

"Wha-huh? Ah haven't touched this field, were you secretly helping, Twilight? Big Mac?"

Presumably they denied involvement, Myles shifted a bit uncomfortably, wondering why this dream was so dull compared to his latest one. He grumbled a bit as he heard hooves approaching, but remained asleep until he was awoken by a shout.

"MYLES!" Applejack yelled angrily, causing the stallion to jump up and stumble back towards the tree, where he smacked the back of his head before falling again. "Were you bucking apples in my field when I told you I didn't need any help!?"

Rubbing the back of his head with a hoof, he was about to answer when Twilight spoke up.

"But you DO need help, Applejack," she said in frustration, "And this time I'm not taking 'No' for an answer"

"Alright…"

"What?"

"I reckon I do need your help after all, I don't think I can finish alone, especially since I only made it this far with Myles' help anyways."

"I wasn't here the whole time Applejack," Myles tried to sound encouraging, "You were almost half done with the other field when I started and I used magic to speed things up. I think you could probably do the whole field yourself if you wanted to."

"Then why'd you help?"

"Because I could see how determined you were to do it and I didn't want you to put yourself in the hospital trying," Myles grinned.

Applejack smiled back and gave Myles a hug, "Thanks for looking out for me, Myles. Myles?" she pushed him away and held him up as he slumped, evidently having fallen asleep on her shoulder. She and Twilight chuckled quietly as Twilight walked away.

"I'll get the rest of the girls to help you finish up, you and Myles rest for now."

Applejack made her way back to the barn and got a blanket for Myles. As she left, she spotted his saddlebag in the corner next to the door and chuckled to herself. "I'll have to watch out for that one, seems he can do just what he wants when he puts his mind to it. Hmm. Sounds familiar." She chuckled to herself again as she brought the saddlebag out and set it next to Myles, then threw the blanket over him and went to greet the girls, who had just arrived to help.

Myles was surrounded by crystals again. He picked out an individual sound and traced it to its source, stopping in front of the crystal and adjusting it with his magic as he listened to the one right next to it. After some work, the two crystals harmonized, complimenting each other's parts of the sound. He glanced around at the room and wondered at what it must sound like when the whole room was tuned. He smirked. Only one way to find out.

**Phew. Okay. There's another one and I really need to stop saying what I'm going to do in these notes because they end up not being true. Opening note I say I'm not going to answer anything with crystals and of course that end up being the first thing in this story. At the very least, Myles reaction to Applejack's plight remained the same. I had thought from the beginning that having him secretly harvesting the other field that Applejack forgot would be amusing, though the encounter in the barn was added on the spot.**

**Still, I will get around to the other stuff I mentioned and also back to making Myles a larger part of each episode, like he was in the opening. The trouble is these episodes are focused on specific ponies that needn't necessarily interact with Myles. I managed to work him in a bit but at the same time I didn't want to stomp all over the original plot. Nor did I want to type out the dialogue if it wasn't going to be any different from the show. Myles will have a bigger part of later episodes, especially those that concern the Everfree forest.**

**If you look at the series from a writing standpoint, the presence of the Everfree forest is clever, as it allows the writers to draw upon an established source for conflict without having to laboriously explain why there are monsters attacking. They're nearby and they're wild animals. So they can use it for starting or moving a plot forward easily, even if the town's proximity to the forest is a bit dubious. The Timberwolves being a part of the Zapp Apple harvest means that Sweet Apple Acres placement makes sense, but the rest of the town could still have been built farther off without making things too inconvenient. From the standpoint of Ponyville being a place where people keep their belongings and raise families, the town's border with Everfree is a bit ridiculous. With how many stories in the series involve something from Everfree invading town not being too numerous, one could probably ignore this. The problem is the town is placed under significant threat each time and it's up to whatever pony is being focused on in that episode to solve things and in later seasons this is often Twilight Sparkle using her considerable magical ability to confront the threat. **

**This is partially what inspired Myles' occupation in town, even though it's a bit unreasonable that he's the only municipally assigned protector of town, it makes more sense to always have someone watching for trouble. Before Twilight arrived, Applejack, Rainbow and Fluttershy would probably be the ones who dealt with invading creatures and that's just if they were around when it happened. I can't really explain who did Myles' job before he arrived, but presumably part of Celestia's incentive to send him to Ponyville would have been as an answer to numerous requests for protection from the town's mayor. That's also why I had her and Myles at each other's throats in the first chapter.**

**How Ponyville survived without half the town getting destroyed every month before Twilight arrived is puzzling to me. I would assume that after so many times of having to rebuild the same house, the construction workers would ask with increasing urgency if you wouldn't mind living somewhere else. Then there's the trouble of paying for all that, insurance would be problematic if it had to cover the cost of a new house each week.**

**Then again, maybe all that did happen. Maybe Filthy Rich runs a slum on the far side of town where he overcharges rent to ponies forced out of their homes due to monster attacks. It'd still be cheaper than paying insurance so he could gouge prices to his liking. Wonder why we never see that part of Ponyville in the show. **

**Probably because that's a little depressing. Anyways, I'm way off topic. Myles has a specific role in Ponyville and believe me when I say that episodes that would involve that role will involve Myles a lot more when I can pull it off. In other cases, I'll try and keep a balance between altering things to fit Myles in or having him absent from certain events to save time and space.**

**Of course, if someone were to insist I do otherwise I might change my mind about that, but for now that's what I'll stick with.**

**-Dr Spacewizard Esq.**

**Oh cool someone did say something. Not much but it's a start. Thanks for giving feedback.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Well, been wanting to make progress on this but been dreading this episode, oh yeah and there were holidays and family I didn't want looking over my shoulder at the time either.**

**Seriously though, as much as the episode works on its own, I can't really think of a way to make my character relevant without derailing the entire plot. And seeing as I'm not very fond of the episode to begin with, this may be a very short chapter.**

**On the other hand, given the current correlation between my expectations and what I've actually put into this story thus far… well, let's just see where this goes.**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

Griffon the Brush-off or Subtle Resonance

Myles sat before his worktable, focusing on the crystal as it hummed with energy. He held his ear to the crystal at the other end of the table, listening for the telltale sound of magic acting on it. He expected some difficulty tuning the crystals while other active ones were present, but only two were working at the moment, meaning he could consciously tune the other sound out.

He began to hear the faintest ringing coming from the other crystal, signaling they had started to harmonize, when suddenly the crystal strapped to his leg pulsed red and emitted a dull tone. He lifted it to his face and tapped it, bringing up the perimeter detection model. A small red shape was quickly fading from the dome. The shadow revealed it to be pony-sized and winged. Myles headed towards the window to check when the alert crystal went off again, revealing another object of similar size, this one bound to the ground. Judging by how quickly they faded from the perimeter wall, both objects were moving at remarkable speeds.

Making his way outside, Myles arrived just in time to see the trees snap back into their upright position, as though recovering from being hit by strong winds. A pink blur faded into the woods as well. Myles cracked a smile and headed back inside his home, shaking his head. It was Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, he was certain, and thus didn't require his intervention. If creatures existed in the Everfree Forest that could catch either of them, Myles was fairly confident he wouldn't be able to handle them without some serious preparation.

Myles frowned as his alert crystal went off twice in quick succession again and he saw a rainbow and then a pink blur shoot past the opening in his door. Occasionally other ponies made their way in and out of the forest, but usually they let him know and had a good reason. He wondered how many times Rainbow or Pinkie had been around the forest before his warning system was in place. Of course the girls had claimed never to have set foot in there before they dealt with Nightmare Moon, but Myles had a feeling Rainbow likely flew over it several times without realizing it.

He'd have to add some sort of system to recognize situations like this… someday. He was still very low on supply of crystals, despite having finally gotten a chance to speak to his friends about the issue. Rarity had actually let him know about an area nearby where she went to gather gemstones occasionally, but so far he hadn't been able to recover many crystals. There had been a promising looking system of caves beneath the area, but he'd need to make improvements to the perimeter before he could explore that far. He didn't feel right taking any of Rarity's supply of gemstones.

He returned to his worktable and returned his ear to the side of the crystal on his left as he tuned the other.

His eyes shot open as the noise reached his ears. Myles lifted his head from the table, where he had fallen asleep, having finally tuned the crystals into a permanent harmonic connection after a few hours work.

It hadn't been the same as the perimeter system, as those crystals all sent out a signal that had to be assembled and decoded by another crystal. That connection was only one-way, and could be received by anything tuned to the right frequency. He'd even offered to make the Mayor a crystal that would let her see the perimeter as well, but she had declined, now confident that Myles would have handled any such situation before she could rally any help. In a few short weeks, she'd gone from skeptical in Myles capabilities to overconfident. He was still only one pony who only vaguely knew what he was doing, even in crystal magic, which everyone insisted he was an expert in.

Myles found this hard to believe, seeing as he'd spent three hours getting two crystals just to communicate with each other, not even sending useful information along the connection yet. Evidently he'd made a mistake as well, since the crystal he'd fallen asleep next to was now emitting irregular tones at more than one pitch. The frequency was all wrong, he'd been trying to make them fairly quiet so as not to become a nuisance, but the tones he heard now would be audible to anypony within ten feet. Myles lifted his head and his ears twitched about, listening carefully. The tones were not only inconsistent, but appeared to be originating from outside the crystals. While he had considered this application, he was fairly certain he hadn't figured out how it would be possible yet.

He frowned and carefully stalked over to his window. The sounds became more intense as he approached silently so he could monitor the tones. The crystals were emitting the same tones he'd fallen asleep to, which were barely audible. The newer tones became louder as he approached his window. His expression turned to a subtle grin as he leaned on his open windowsill and looked down at the light blue and pink ponies ducked outside. Both were shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Hey guys," Myles greeted them casually, causing Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie to jump in surprise.

"Wha-? Rainbow Dash looked shocked as she addressed Myles, "How'd you figure that out so fast?"

"Told ya it wouldn't work on him," Pinkie said with a wide smile, "he's got Shodslaw-

"Shardsole."

"-Shadros Sense! Myles can hear for miles!" Pinkie giggled, "Hey! I didn't even mean to do that. That's funny!" She escalated into raucous laughter.

"Nice try though," Myles grinned, "a couple of weeks ago when I never got any sleep, that probably would've driven me nuts."

"I knew we shoulda went with the fake manticore attack," Rainbow muttered with frustration. Myles expression suddenly became deadly serious.

"Yeaahhhhh, ummmm…," he remembered the last time he fought a manticore, "no fake attacks on Ponyville, if you did pull it off somepony'd get hurt."

"C'mon, Rainbow," Pinkie spoke up, "Let's prank someone who won't see it coming."

"Yeah okay," Rainbow said disappointedly, "I thought he wouldn't see it coming if we didn't set off his crystal stuff."

"I _did _do this job for several months before Twilight figured out how to make the crystal magic work."

"Twilight?" Rainbow and Pinkie asked in unison. Myles looked confused.

"Yeah," he raised an eyebrow, "She's the one who figured it out."

"Huh," said Rainbow, "The way she tells it you figured it out in seconds based on something you realized on your own and it still didn't exactly make sense to her. Last I heard she's been diving into several books trying to figure out how you do it."

"What?"  
>"Yeah," Rainbow placed a hoof to her chin as she recalled the memory, "She said something about it having to do with sound… but then she said that was impossible to do without very sensitive measuring equipment. And that it wasn't really sound but magic that shouldn't work like sound. Also that it was impossible."<p>

Myles leaned on his hooves and smirked, "Impossible, huh?"

Rainbow laughed, "Yeah, I don't think she realized how often she said 'impossible,' it looked like it was really getting on her nerves. Almost didn't prank her. Almost." Rainbow laughed, "See ya round, Myles!" She shouted over her shoulder as she and Pinkie waved goodbye to a thoughtful Myles. He waved distractedly at them as he turned back to his workstation.

A while later, Myles opened the door, answering an excited knocking that could only be one pony.

"Pinkie Pie?" He said as he opened the door to the pony in question.

"Wow! There's no fooling you is there?" Pinkie smiled as Myles rolled his eyes, deciding not to mention that nopony else knocked like foal with a sugar-high on their birthday.

"Whats up, Pinkie?"

"OH! That's right! I came to invite you to a PARTY!" She squealed this last word so loud that Myles winced in pain. "Oops… sorry."

Myles put a hoof to his head, "Its fine," he said, though his ears were still ringing, "I guess I am a little overdue for attending one of your parties, aren't I?"

"You did promise you'd make the next one."

"I did," he admitted, rubbing his ears in an attempt to get the ringing to stop, "What's the occasion?"

"I'm throwing a welcome party for Rainbow's friend, Gilda, to try and cheer her up!"

"Gilda?" Myles furrowed his brow as he thought, "I don't think I've met anypony by that name."

"Oh she's not a pony, she's a griffin."

Myles raised an eyebrow, "So when and where is this party?"

"Right now!" Pinkie shouted, causing Myles to wince again and giving him no time to resist as she grabbed his shoulder and dragged him off towards their destination. He managed to shut the door to his house with his magic. Then he tried to memorize his two newest ideas for crystals, one that shuts the door when you leave the house and one that makes short recordings for saving ideas.

Myles held his head as Pinkie dragged him through the front door of her house. He looked up and resisted the urge to laugh, wondering if Pinkie ever bothered to take down the balloons or streamers decorating the room, since she was always about to host a party of some sort.

His head throbbed in pain again and he placed a hoof to it as he walked to a nearby wall and sat down to wait. "Are you alright?" he heard somepony ask and looked up to see Twilight Sparkle and Rarity walking away from the door, having just been greeted by Pinkie. Myles grimace turned into a half smile, as he looked up.

"Yeah," he rubbed his ear with a hoof as the ringing finally faded, "Just not used to Pinkie Pie's enthusiasm."

Rarity chuckled, "It can be overpowering at times." Twilight merely frowned a bit as she walked over. Her eyes had dark rings underneath them, as though she hadn't been getting much sleep.

"You doing alright, Twilight?" Myles asked, taking his turn to be concerned, "You look like me a month ago." Rarity chuckled but Twilight's expression didn't lighten any. "You know," Myles added nervously, "only purple and much less deranged." Twilight glared daggers at him. "Annnnnd… with very nice hair…? And… eyes…?" Rarity wrapped a hoof around Myles shoulders and led him away quickly.

"I suggest you quit before you manage to fit all four hooves in your mouth, dear." Rarity said with a smile. Myles looked confused.

"What'd I do?"

"Well," Rarity considered as she brought him to another part of the room out of earshot of Twilight, "I realize you were trying to make a joke, but it wasn't the most tactful of things to say, particularly to Twilight. And then you kept making it worse…" Rarity chuckled to herself again. "You are aware that you've already been causing her some distress recently, yes?"

"Is that what it is?" Myles asked with concern, glancing over at Twilight, "Rainbow Dash said she'd been doing some research into crystal magic, but I didn't realize it was bothering her this much."

"You've no idea," Rarity uttered conspiratorially, "Pinkie Pie could barely get her attention when she came to ask for help concerning this Gilda earlier. I don't think she's had a proper rest for the past two days."

Myles frowned in confusion, "Any idea why it matters so much to her?"

Rarity laughed, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Let's just assume it isn't for some of us."

Rarity giggled, "She's jealous," Myles raised an eyebrow in disbelief and Rarity merely laughed again. "She's Princess Celestia's student and an excellent wielder of magic, but you can work a type of magic she can't even figure out!"

Myles looked even more puzzled, "But I explained what I knew to her, which wasn't much, and she's the one who picked out the information I was missing to make the process work!"

Rarity bit her lip to suppress further laughter, after a moment she was able to continue, "Evidently that's only making things worse, she keeps saying the way you explained it doesn't entirely make sense and that she was merely asking you about crystals when you figured it out yourself."

"You think I should talk to her?" Myles asked, leaning around and meeting Twilight's eyes, causing her eyelids to twitch in irritation. Rarity followed his gaze and then turned back to him.

"Perhaps you should just give her some space for now," Rarity whispered nervously. Myles nodded in agreement and then his ears perked up and twitched slightly.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Like a high-pitched buzzing sound…"

Rarity looked a little worried, "Noooooo…. Perhaps you should go lie down a while. Perhaps Pinkie affected you more than you think…"

"No," Myles said slowly, scanning the room for the source of the noise, "This is definitely not my imagination… Hey, Rarity?"

"Yes?"

"Did Pinkie shake your hoof on the way in?"

Rarity followed his gaze towards Pinkie Pie, who had just welcomed a few ponies inside without extending a hoof. "Yes, actually, why do you-?"

Rarity stopped as a large creature with an eagles head and a lion's body walked through the door. "That's Gilda," Rarity whispered. Myles nodded and angled his ears towards the door, following the sound he'd heard.

"Gilda! I'm so honored to throw you one of my signature Pinkie Pie parties! And I really, truly, sincerely hope you feel welcome here amongst us ponyfolk!" She extended a hoof, which Gilda took in her claw before recoiling as though struck. Pinkie giggled and Rainbow soon joined her.

"The old hoofshake buzzer, Pinkie Pie, you are a scream!" Gilda didn't seem pleased as they continued their welcome.

"Thought so," Myles said.

"You knew?" Rarity asked as Twilight approached them.

"Course I did," Myles shook his head, "it's obviously an old buzzer, you can hear it going off a bit when she put it on." Rarity looked at him curiously and he looked nervously from her to Twilight, who was now standing right behind Rarity with an expression Myles couldn't interpret, "… can't you?" He asked nervously. Rarity shook her head and Twilight seized one of his ears in between her front hooves, making him wince in pain as she pulled his head over so she could inspect it.

"OW! HEY! What gives!?" Myles managed to utter.

"Twilight, what's gotten into you!" Rarity sounded as she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Where is it?" Twilight demanded.

"What? Where's WHAT?!" Myles desperately asked, still struggling to keep her from pulling his ear off.

"The crystal, or device or whatever it is! Where is it?" Twilight seemed indignant as she lit up her horn, shining the light into Myles ear, then frowning and spinning him around and doing the same for his other ear as Myles winced and released a new string of "ows" as she tugged on his ear. Rarity pushed Twilight's hooves away and forced her away from Myles, but she grabbed the leather-bound crystal off of his hoof and pulled it with her, flipping it upside down and turning it inside out, searching desperately for something she seemed certain was around.

Finding nothing, she dropped it on the ground and attempted to get back to Myles, but was blocked by Rarity. Meanwhile, Myles had sunk to the ground, pressing his front hooves over his ears to dull the pain from having them pulled on so forcefully. His eyes remained shut as the pain slowly faded away. As it did, he was able to just hear Twilight and Rarity's hushed argument a few feet away, he lifted the hoof nearest them, wincing as it twinged with pain again but listening in.

"…absolutely cannot believe you would do such a thing! You were most concerned with Myles health when he was confined to the hospital, but now you attack him and accuse him of… what, exactly?" Myles hadn't known Rarity for long, and was shocked to hear her speaking so harshly to a friend of theirs. He was about to speak up when Twilight actually growled at her in frustration before responding.

"I'm telling you, it doesn't add up! Assuming he's right and the sound emitted by the crystals directly correlates to the quality and flow of the magic they are using, there's no way he can tell the difference unaided! I only heard the difference in the first crystal because it was made to produce sound! The other crystals were silent to the naked ear! He has to be using some sort of amplifier or other measurement tool that tells him the information he's supposedly getting from these crystals!" Myles jaw had dropped and he was no longer hiding the fact that he was listening to them, seeing this she angrily directed her next statements towards him, "I'm right aren't I? You're tricking everypony into thinking you are this amazing genius when it comes to crystals, but you've been making it up? HAVEN'T YOU!?"

Myles was dumbstruck. He had been struggling to find a place to begin to explain everything to Twilight, but she shouted her final question at the top of her lungs only a few feet from Myles, which caused his head to spin in pain. He galloped at top speed for the door, stumbling a bit and bumping into Gilda, who already seemed irate with several things that had happened at the party. Gilda rounded on Myles and roared at him, causing him to actually shout out in pain as he tripped over his own hooves in his scramble towards the exit. He barely registered several other noises as he ran as fast as his hooves would carry him towards his home. When he arrived, Myles threw the door open and collapsed onto his bed, forcing his head beneath the pillow before blacking out.

Myles heard muffled voices close by. He winced again and struggled to remember why his head hurt so badly. He felt something poke his side but the pain in his head kept him from reacting. Suddenly he was being shaken and the pillow was ripped from the bed. He groaned and covered his head with his hooves again, trying to shut out the pounding inside his own ears.

He felt something solid touch his right temple and suddenly the pain reduced to a slight tingling sensation. Groggily, he opened an eye and saw a purple glow right next to his head. He shut his eye to protect from both the brightness and to ignore the feeling of dizziness that overcame him. He still felt terrible, but past the constant ringing he finally managed to pick out some of the words the frantic voices nearby were saying.

"…should take care of the pain, Celestia taught me that herself. I just hope there's no permanent damage."

"He still looks awful! Can't you do anything else to help!?" Rarity cried and Myles resisted the urge to heave up his lunch as the room spun faster.

"You can start by keeping it down…" he groaned.

"MYL-" Twilight began, but stopped when she saw him wince, "Myles. Are you okay?" she whispered as she threw her hooves around him in a tight embrace.

Myles groaned a bit, "I think so. It doesn't hurt anymore at least, so thanks for that. Still feel dizzy though." He relaxed a bit, no longer squinting but still not opening his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Rarity asked quietly. Myles cracked an eyelid to look but immediately regretted it as his head spun.

"Just keep your eyes closed," Twilight said as she pulled back but kept a hoof over his neck, she turned to Rarity and whispered, "He's still disoriented, the overload in volume probably shook up his inner ear."

"Poor thing," Rarity mumbled, "I suppose a griffin roaring directly into your ear would give anyone a headache."

"It's worse than that," Twilight said, running her hoof over Myles neck and trying to keep him comfortable. "Worse for him, anyways."

"What do you mean, Twilight?" Rarity asked perplexedly.

"It's like you said," Twilight replied sadly, "he was affected more because he's different from us."

"What?"

"Back at Pinkie's party, you got angry at me for hurting Myles just because he had an ability I didn't-"

"At which point you ran out-"

"Because I realized you were exactly right," Twilight continued as quietly as possible, "I was angry and jealous because I thought Myles was faking his talent so he could do something I can't, but I hadn't considered he could do it not because he was better, but simply because he was different."

"I'm afraid I still don't understand."

"Rarity, he actually did hear the buzzer and he can hear the crystals, he probably always could because his hearing is more sensitive than most ponies. Astoundingly more sensitive. It's also probably how he defended the town so well before figuring out the crystals, he likely heard creatures coming a lot earlier than anypony else would've."  
>"The Mayor always complained about how hard it was to rouse him though…" Rarity said uncertainly.<p>

"Right, because he tuned that out as an unimportant sound," Twilight couldn't help but grin a little at this, "but he was listening for dangers from the forest even while he slept."

"But that's through a solid wall and way out in the woods…" Rarity sounded amazed, "Can he really hear that well?"

"I'd be surprised if he hasn't heard this whole conversation even though his ears would still be ringing."

"Yeah they are," Myles said from the bed, still keeping his eyes shut.

"So when Gilda roared at him…" Rarity began.

"It'd be sort of like someone had clapped their hooves on either side of his skull… about a dozen times."

"Sounds about right," Myles mumbled.

"Oh you poor thing," Rarity cooed, placing her own hoof on Myles head.

"What happened to Loudbeak, anyways?" Myles asked, wanting to keep them talking to distract him from the remaining nausea, which was slowly fading.

"She seemed to think Pinkie Pie was conspiring to make her 'lose her cool,'" Rarity giggled, "but it turned out she was being pranked by Rainbow Dash. She flew off not long after you ran away."

A sad look crossed Twilights face, "Between the way Gilda and I acted, I suspect we pretty much ruined Pinkie Pie's party…"

Rarity pulled Twilight into a hug as well, "She didn't seem bothered by it, Rainbow said she'd rather spend time with Pinkie, they only really seemed concerned with Myles' wellbeing." Twilight's head hung in shame, but Rarity patted her on the back. "I'll go let them know everything will be fine and that Myles just isn't feeling well." Rarity excused herself from the room and Twilight followed her to the door.

"Tell Pinkie to keep it down when she comes to Myles' house, too."

"Should I say why?" She asked nervously.

"That's up to Myles…"

"Go ahead," Myles said, making the girls jump. He relaxed a little, laying his head to the side as he finally seemed to regain his ability to tell which way was up, "they'll find out sooner or later anyways." Twilight giggled at Rarity's shocked expression as she shut the door as quietly as possible and made her way back to Myles' side.

"Look, Myles…" she began.

"Its fine, Twilight," he sighed, "It was just a misunderstanding."

"It's not just that, I let my jealousy get in the way of our friendship, I- I- " Twilight shuddered a bit as she recalled her actions, "I attacked you and accused you of being a liar, all because I couldn't admit there might be something you could be better at-" She stopped as Myles wrapped his front hooves around her and brought her into a tight embrace, leaning his head on her shoulder.

"Its fine, Twilight," he said, "We all make mistakes. I should know, I make more than some ponies do," he smiled as he felt Twilight shake with nervous laughter, then she pulled away from their hug "besides, if you hadn't I'd have never known about my ear thingy." He flicked one of his ears with a hoof, grimacing as it stung a little once more.

"How could you not know?" She wondered aloud.

"I remember asking you the same thing recently," he grinned, "and I had no idea, I thought everyone could hear the crystals too. Also I got roared at a bunch before you got to Ponyville, what really stumps me is how this hasn't come up before…" Myles looked confused as he considered the pain he'd been put through.

"Hmmm," Twilight placed a hoof to her chin in thought, "when we first met and I was asking about your crystals…"

"You mean when you figured out how crystals and magic interact?"

"That was you, all I did was ask you questions."

"You asked the right questions, Twilight, I really doubt I would have made any progress if you hadn't."

"You're the one who put it all together though."

"Still wouldn't have happened without you," Myles smirked.

Twilight rolled her eyes, "This isn't actually helping…"

Myles' head drooped, "Sorry, I just wanted you to know that, as far as I'm concerned, the discovery was yours."

Twilight looked thoughtful at this and her eyes began to water a bit, "…thanks Myles…"

She shook her head and wiped her eyes with a hoof before he could look up and spot her expression. "Anyway, you said before that you tuned the humming out because it was always there, correct?"

"Yeah."  
>"And would you say I'm right in assuming you've been trying new experiments on crystals ever since you figured out how to make it work?"<p>

"Yes."

"Well then," Twilight gently lifted one of his ears and lit up her horn as she peered inside, "This is just a theory, but my guess would be that they are more sensitive to loud noises because you've been using them so much for listening to subtle changes in sound."

"So you're saying… what… I figured out how to open my ears more?"

Twilight giggled, "Sort of, but definitely not on a conscious level, more than likely it happened over the course of the past few weeks as an automatic response."  
>"So now I'm stuck like this?"<p>

"Maybe not, you could probably keep a good balance in sensitivity going so long as you don't spend extended periods or time listening to crystals. Just remember to take breaks and it might get better. I've never heard of this kind of thing happening to anypony, but then again, you're the only pony I know that spends hours at a time listening to crystals. I'll definitely be doing some research into the anatomy of the aural canal after this." She had trailed off, talking to herself, but seemed to suddenly remember he was there. "Oh, sorry," she said sheepishly, "Feeling better?"

Myles cracked a grin, "Yeah, and I definitely feel better about this ear thing now that Celestia's top student is on the case." Twilight chuckled a bit but then her eyes went wide.

"Celestia! I forgot to write her my letter with my findings about friendship!" Twilight sprinted out of the house, leaving Myles door wide open. Slowly, he got up and shut his door, pausing only to say "Night, Twilight," to the purple blur accelerating away from his home.

**I really need to stop making assumptions when I sit down to type these. ** **True enough I managed to work Myles into the plot of the episode while only mildly paying attention to the actual events of the episode again, and I promise I won't do that for every episode, so just calm down if you consider that a cop out. **

**I was going to say the hearing thing came out of nowhere, but that's not entirely true. After typing out the first few chapters the idea occurred to me as part of why Myles could figure out crystal magic but others couldn't, but originally it wasn't going to come up until later. Now that it's done, I'm glad it worked its way into this episode. It made this chapter more fun than I anticipated and working it into the episode I had initially planned to introduce it in would've made that one tedious. **

**Occasionally, I grew concerned that I was writing Twilight OOC in this chapter, but I kept remembering Lesson Zero. I once suggested to a friend that the writers of MLP missed a great opportunity by not having Twilight completely lose her mind throughout season 2, causing trouble with the express purpose of finding out more about friendship and only regaining her sanity at the season finale. They loved the idea and expressed interest in writing a fanfic of that, I've no idea if they ever got around to it. Regardless, Twilight is still very new to friendship and we know she has potential to act irrationally when it comes to what she's learned. If you think I took it too far, go ahead and let me know as long as you're polite about it, but I think her actions are within her normal deviations from sanity portrayed in the show.**

**The best part of this is it's going to make the next episode even more interesting. Or at least I hope it will. The topic will certainly be hard to avoid. And I already had something interesting planned for that episode just based on Myles' occupation. Don't worry though, when you read this I will have posted that chapter as well, so just hit next to find out what I'm talking about.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Boom! Double post! Told ya!**

**I'm probably going to stick to posting two chapters at once, at least until I've made it through season 1. Most of the interesting things I have pre-planned for Myles kick off in season 2, however I've been pleasantly surprised with how he's fit into season 1 so far. Regardless, just so you guys get more per update and this doesn't feel like it's taking forever, I'll give this a shot.**

**I'm not sure about what all is going to happen here. I have at least one thing I know has to happen because of a mistake I made earlier. I also have at least one thing that can't happen because it would ruin the episode. I'll elaborate on those after the chapter if the former still winds up happening.**

**I don't own My Little Pony**

**(Settle in for a longer chapter)**

Boast Busters or Shattered

Myles snuck quietly along the tree line, keeping an eye on the surface of the swamp water. He didn't bother checking the woods behind him, whatever lived in the swamp kept the other inhabitants of the Everfree forest at a distance, which was why it had caught his attention.

Before Twilight arrived, his excursions into the forest were usually a death-defying sprint trying to lose a potential predator or lure it into a trap. Any knowledge he'd gained of the creatures who lived there was usually at the cost of a few hairs from his tail and a few fresh bruises. Now that his crystal warning system was in place, he had time to look explore. He had always intended to do so in order to familiarize himself with the types of creatures who lived there, as he had no doubt there were dozens of varieties he didn't know about. While it put him in danger of being attacked, it also meant he might figure out a better way of fighting a monster without the stress of having to keep it away from Ponyville at the same time.

At least, that's the reasoning he gave the Mayor when he told her of his intentions to explore. If he was completely honest, he'd have just admitted that he was curious about the place. Before Nightmare Moon returned he had had no idea the old royal castle was in the forest, there might be other ruins inside as well. Myles also recalled glimpsing what appeared to be a straw-covered hut in the woods on one occasion as well, but he had been too busy running from timberwolves to take a look at the time and later he couldn't find the spot he'd seen it in again.

He'd passed the swamp before, but he'd never stayed long enough to see anything unusual that lived there. If he hadn't noticed the lack of wild animals around the water, he probably wouldn't have bothered looking for anything there.

Myles jumped as he heard a loud croak from a nearby toad, which then quickly hopped away. The toads seemed to be the one exception to the absence of wildlife in the water. Initially he considered that they might be the reason for the quiet, but they didn't act aggressively at all and if they were poisonous there would still be other creatures in the habitat, they'd probably leave the toads be. He had just decided to read up on toads in the library when he noticed something else strange. If he looked closely he could see the swamp was populated by hundreds of toads, their natural camouflage made them hard to spot, but if one looked carefully they could be picked out. Myles had never seen so many toads in one place before, but that wasn't what bothered him. Every other time he'd seen a toad it was accompanied by their signature bellowed, grating croaks, often overlapping each other to make a constant din that made them one of Myles least favorite animals.

The swamp inside the Everfree forest, however, was quiet as a tomb.

The toad that had surprised him had been the loudest noise he'd heard in the last hour and the creature had fled quickly afterwards. Myles kept still and observed closely. The ripples the toad had created when he hopped through the water had spread to the center, almost barely visible at this point, but suddenly the water's surface writhed with new waves from several new sources. He heard a few loud croaks and several wet impacts as what looked like every toad in the swamp fled, putting as much distance between themselves and the water as possible. Before Myles could begin following them, the water's surface churned as though they were rapids in a river. He took a tentative step back, but froze when he heard it. The sound was muffled and indistinct, clearly coming from deep below the surface, but it was loud enough that Myles felt it through the ground at the same time.

He couldn't decide if the sound had more in common with the toad's croaks or the growl of a predator. The noise became louder and repeated, this time overlapping itself, and the water's surface seemed to grow more violent. Myles quit pondering the sounds quality and dashed between the trees towards Ponyville. He couldn't be sure what lay beneath the swamps surface, but he knew there was more than one of them, and they were each probably bigger than his house.

As he spotted the edge of Ponyville, he heard the sound again. It was distant, but clearer now, and it was accompanied by the sound of trees being broken like twigs. He stopped running when he got outside the perimeter and listened. After a few more roars, the sound faded and Myles breathed a sigh of relief.

As he entered his home, he decided he wasn't curious enough to go back to the swamp anytime soon. And even then, he'd have to be certain to leave a full regiment of Celestia's personal guard at the town's edge in case it tried to follow him back. He briefly considered writing the Princess for permission to fill the swamp with crystal depth charges, but instead shook his head and chuckled, imagining the Princess' reaction to him effectively asking to bomb the forest, even if it was for the safety of Ponyville.

He put on his saddle bag and checked the perimeter crystal to see that everything was in order before leaving for the library. As he neared the center of town, he spotted what looked like a stage extending from a brightly colored carriage parked next to the town hall. Most of Ponyville seemed to have gathered around it. He spotted a light blue unicorn in a well-adorned cape walking behind the curtain as the crowd dispersed. Whatever had been going on had just ended, so Myles simply shrugged and continued towards the library.

After a few knocks on the library door, it was opened by a distressed looking Twilight.

"Hey Twilight," Myles frowned as he spotted her expression, "Something wrong?"

"No," she said quickly, "Nothing. What did you need?"

Myles looked at her quizzically before continuing, "Do you have any books on wildlife, specifically swamp-dwelling creatures?"

"Oh," Twilight seemed to relax a bit, "I'm sure I do. C'mon inside and we'll see what we can find. Myles spotted a door in the middle of the room as he entered and raised an eyebrow. Twilight chuckled nervously and made it vanish. "Just a joke I was playing on Spike."

Myles rolled his eyes as she turned and was about to make a sarcastic remark when the crystal on his leg emitted two dull tones and glowed red. He tapped it with a hoof and spotted two fading red shapes on the perimeter wall. They weren't that large but were vaguely pony-shaped. Myles grumbled as he turned back to the door.

"Gotta check the perimeter. Guess I'll look at those books later."

Twilight laughed nervously, "Okay, I'll leave them out for you."

Myles galloped towards his home, making a mental note to try and figure out what was bothering Twilight after he was done dragging the foals sneaking into the Everfree forest to the mayor's office. As far as he knew, Ponyville didn't have a jail or even anything resembling law enforcement, the town hadn't had need of them. Perhaps they'd build one after tonight, but for now, he'd have to resist the temptation to repeatedly smack the ponies who forced him to go back into the forest twice in the same afternoon. Or rather night, Myles noticed the sun setting on the horizon and doubled his speed. He had to act fast, the forest was a completely different place at night.

While the Everfree forest was certainly deadly during the daytime, the dangers that rose with the sun generally just ate you quickly, and you would have had plenty of warning. The nocturnal predators of those cursed woods tended to be a lot more subtle and thorough. If Myles didn't get the idiots out now, no one would ever find a trace of them. And he'd have to avoid telling their relatives that he secretly hoped they were eaten, there were scant few alternatives that he knew of and all of those made being devoured alive seem like a mercifully pleasant alternative.

He checked the perimeter again before running into the forest, making sure to enter the same area in which the delinquents did in order to make picking up their trail easier. Myles growled in frustration, following the blatant trail of broken tree limbs and smashed foliage and keeping alert for the creatures the two would inevitably wake as they all but bulldozed a path through the woods. Their trail wasn't hard to follow and they had cleared some of the debris as they went on, so Myles kept up a brisk gallop along their trail, not worried about being stealthy. Whatever could be alerted to the presence of prey had already been roused. These two only stood a chance if he could get to them first.

An expression of surprise crossed Myles face as he broke into a clearing and continued following the trail, which now amounted to twigs and leaves the two had shaken loose as they crossed the clearing and entered the caves. Myles hadn't been inside the caves yet, but he knew many of them were occupied, having spotted several animals retreating into them at night. He lit up his horn and charged into the cave, following the sound of voices. They sounded young, probably schoolchildren on a dare. He realized at least one was a unicorn as Myles spotted a magical light ignite a little ways into the cave, the only light aside from his own. If he was very lucky, he'd be scolding these two for waking up a colony of bats in about a half hour.

"What do you think you're…?" Myles began, causing the two young ponies to turn towards him as the one's light continued to grow brighter. As the cave was illuminated, Myles groaned.

Today's allotment of luck must've gone towards keeping the swamp creature from following him, because it was obviously spent already. The two glanced around at what made Myles stop talking and their jaws dropped.

"…run…"

His voice was barely audible over the building rumble.

"Wha-!?"

"Shhhh!" Myles cut off the shorter one's shout and continued in a harsh whisper, "Run back to town as fast as you can and get help." The massive shape behind the two began to stir.

"B- bu-but what abo-"

"If I survive tonight," Myles hissed through gritted teeth, more from anger than a desire to be quiet, "you will both have permanent hoof-shaped indentations in your thick skulls when you wake up tomorrow, but the only way you are going to wake up tomorrow is if you RUN!" Myles shouted at the two, causing them to jump as he pulled a few crystals out of his saddlebag. The two small unicorns ran full tilt out of the cave, screaming the whole way. Myles didn't bother to tell them to be quiet, the damage had already been done.

He embedded a crystal in either side of the cave and tuned them to form a barrier between him and the creature. The barrier flickered into being just as what appeared to be a translucent, house-sized bear rose to its feet. Myles covered his ears with his hooves as the creature let out an ear-splitting roar. His head spun, but because of the barrier muffling the sound and the adrenaline already pumping through his veins Myles was able to leap to his feet with little trouble. He galloped out of the cave and made for the woods.

Behind him, he heard a shrill pitched whine as the crystals overloaded from the strain. Myles growled but didn't look back, he'd hoped the crystals would buy him a greater head-start, but that would have been lucky and his current reserve wouldn't have filled a teaspoon. He thought quickly, he couldn't handle the beast himself and though he didn't doubt the two colts would get help, he wasn't confident it'd be able to find him in the dense woods. He certainly wasn't leading the beast back to town. Suddenly, Myles let out a laugh as he turned further into the woods. There was a location nearby that would be easy for anypony to find, and help may already be waiting there.

"C'mon fuzzball!" Myles shouted over his shoulder. "You and I are gonna meet some new friends!" He heard trees buckle and fall behind him and felt the massive bear's rampaging footfalls behind him grow louder. He put on a burst of speed as he spotted an opening in the trees, skidding to a stop only when he made it to the clearing ahead. The massive blue shape crashed through the trees towards him but Myles merely smirked. He lightly kicked a rock with one of his rear hooves.

The soft "bloop" the stone made as it broke the surface of the swamp seemed to echo off the tree trunks.

As the water behind him turned into a tumultuous spray, Myles grinned and prepared to run again. The smile slowly faded from his face as the sound of falling trees faded to silence. He could see the texture of the strange beast's hide, covered in stars similar to the Princess Luna's mane but a lighter blue. He could make out the shape of a constellation on its side, the bright points that formed the shape only outshined by the creature's eyes. Of course, Myles could see all this because the beast had stopped its raging pursuit and was now looking behind Myles with its eyes wide.

"Okay," Myles muttered, "I'm no longer as confident in this plan as I was ten seconds ago." He heard giant splashes as something emerged from the water behind him. Myles sprinted directly for the hairy shape in front of him without looking back. The beast looked shocked for a moment, but then raised a massive claw to strike as the pony approached.

"Hey! Why don't you pick on somepony great and powerful instead?!"

Myles leaned his head forward as he sprinted between the confused bear's legs. After a moment, trees shook as the beast dropped back to the ground and wood splintered as the massive bear turned itself around.

"I TOLD YOU TO RUN!" Myles shouted at the orange colt ahead of him, who had turned and fled after shouting at the bear.

"I am running!" the young pony called back.

Myles frowned and glanced back at their pursuer, who seemed even more determined to catch the small things that had disturbed its rest. He thought he saw something other than anger in its eyes and reconsidered. Perhaps it just really wanted to get away from the swamp. Myles tried angling back towards the caves, but the bear continued on its current path.

"Please tell me your friend went for help!" Myles shouted as he sprinted to catch up with the orange colt fleeing ahead of him.

"Yeah, don't worry, the great and powerful Trixie will take care of that Ursa Major!"

"Who?"

"The great and powerful Trix-"

"I swear to Celestia if that is the name of your imaginary friend I am going to finish you off before that ursa even catches up!"

"No! She's real! Very real! Also very great and powerful!"

"Yeah, I figured that much out already. Hope she can defend the town."

"Why? It's after us!"

"And WHERE EXACTLY ARE YOU RUNNING TO?!" Myles' eyebrow twitched as he screamed at the colt.

"…oh yeah…" Myles heard him mutter as he finally caught up. The realization caused the other pony to slow a bit before Myles shoved him onwards with his shoulder.

"Too late now," Myles yelled, "This party's coming to Ponyville whether it's ready for it or not." He nodded forwards, indicating the increasingly sparse trees and the outline of a few buildings ahead. "This time you keep running! Understand?"

"You got it!" the colt screamed in desperate acknowledgment of the two angry monsters behind him. One last bit of luck seemed to have held out, as the creature from the swamp appeared too territorial to pursue them.

Myles turned and skidded to a stop as he had done in front of the swamp, this time settling several yards in front of his own house. He grabbed a couple of spare crystals inside with his magic, the window of his house shattering as he pulled them outside and began to enchant them. He closed his eyes and listened to the crystals' pitch fluxuate slowly. His ears twitched about as he tried to ignore the ursa roaring and smashing through anything in its path, focusing instead on tuning the crystals in front of him. As the ursa's latest roar faded, Myles estimated it was only a few dozen yards away. Myles pushed the thought that he might be gone in mere seconds to the back of his mind and focused.

The crystals hum harmonized and Myles thrust them both into the ground and triggered them with a manic grin. He opened his eyes just in time to see the ursa slam against the barrier at full speed. The crystals squealed in protest at the strain, but wavered back and forth in pitch as the bear rose up and slammed its claws into the barrier. "Neat, huh? Just thought of it. Maybe a double reinforced barrier won't last long, but as long as those crystals keep juggling the magical load between each other," Myles sat down and panted, a smirk edging its way across his face, "you are staying put, fluffy."

Once again, Myles smug expression fell apart into one of worry as he heard something else and responded in a monotone "Oh no." He looked down as he heard a second deafening "crack" from the ground in front of him. "No." The soil shifted and so did the rock beneath. "No no!" He looked up as the ursa roared again and slammed itself into the barrier. "NONONO!" The crystals moved back as the rock it was anchored to scraped against its other broken pieces. "NO NO NO NO NO-" Myles got to his feet, his eyes bugging out as the ground beneath him buckled as well.

Myles turned to run as he shouted, "NONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAH!" Myles stumbled as the ground where he was running heaved itself free of the earth and erupted underneath him.

In adrenaline fueled clarity he watched as the massive boulders were pushed over and ricocheted off each other in their horizontal avalanche headed directly towards his house. The rock he was standing on lurched forwards and flung him towards the house. He curled his hooves against himself and aimed his back towards the house as his horn sparked with magic.

"Ow," Myles stated flatly, partly out of anticipation of the coming pain and partly in case he didn't have the chance later.

He saw a gray-blue orb flicker into existence around him just before the first boulder hit him. The orb pulsed brighter as it was struck, sending him flying backwards through the wall. Wood splintered to pieces as he went through and the rest of the wall burst inwards as the torrent of rocks smashed into his house. His bed and dresser shattered and were thrown airborne, followed quickly by the pieces of his work table and storage trunk.

Still watching the chaos unfold at a crawl, Myles heard a faint hum as the music crystal from his bedside table floated towards his protective shell, his gala ticket still stuck to the bottom. He chuckled and opened the barrier a bit, letting the crystal float inside and into his hoof before he closed the shield around himself again.

Violas began to play as he drifted through what used to be the place where he lived. He turned and saw the other wall of his house burst as he was pushed through it. He heard the rest of his house collapse behind him but he was focused on the building next door. He remembered complaining to the Mayor about the placement of his house, how it seemed like his nearest neighbor was two dozen yards away, almost like they didn't want to admit he lived in town. The violas held their chord a bit then let it fade as they began preparing the next. Even with his senses allowing him to perceive the chipped paint on the house next door approaching slowly, it occurred to him that perhaps his house was actually too close.

The cellos struck the first note of their sequence.

He accelerated towards the wall as time sped up again.

Myles wondered who in their right minds paints a house that shade of yellowy green.

And then everything went dark.

"-sycally, he'll be fine," Myles heard a familiar voice state, "Lots of nasty contusions and a few lacerations from shrapnel. And he obviously has some blood loss, which is why it looks so bad, but evidently his magic soaked up most of the impact. That, however, is what worries me. Given Myles' preexisting magical hindrance and the strain it would have taken to generate a barrier to protect himself from the impact… he'll be bed ridden for a month, at least."

Myles cracked open an eyelid, seeing the same doctor who'd treated him previously talking to Twilight and the rest of his friends. Twilight's eyes widened as he sat up and threw his covers off, swinging his hooves over the side of the hospital bed. The doctor's jaw dropped in disbelief before he shook his head and walked towards his patient.

"Mr. Shardslow," he began.

"Shardsole," Myles corrected automatically as his hooves hit the ground, shaking a bit before he stood up, "And I'm sorry doc, but I've got plans for this month."

"Myles!" Twilight threw her hooves around him and the others soon followed, squeezing him as tightly as the last time he'd woken up here. The embrace made Myles wince in pain as it brought the numerous bruises to his attention "I know you don't like it, but you really should get some rest."

"Not yet, gotta take care of something right away," he gently squeezed past the girls and walked into the hallway. He looked around and, spotting the staircase, headed towards it. Twilight was right behind him with a look of increasing concern on her face.

"Myles, you shouldn't even be out of bed yet, let alone walking around," Twilight pleaded with him as he began to descend to the first floor, the girls following close behind, "We just want you to be okay."

Myles glanced around and met her eyes, his expression softening a bit, "Thanks," Twilight smiled, thinking she'd convinced him, but then she saw him walking away again.

"Myles!" she called after him.

He made his way to the front entrance of the hospital and threw the doors open, looking around at the town in disbelief. He shook his head and scowled as he spotted two colts he recognized, standing across the road with their mouths agape. Myles walked up to them until he was only a foot away. Though not very tall for a pony, Myles still looked a little frightening as he drew himself up to his full height and glared down at the two.

They shivered and shrank a little as they looked up at him.

"Names," Myles said in a monotone.

"Wh- wha whu?" The small blue colt tripped over his words.

"What are," Myles injected every syllable with his frustration from the past several months, "your names?"

"S-s-snips."

"Snai-," the other trailed off into silence.

"Speak up," Myles growled as the two shook.

"Snails," the orange colt managed to blurt out.

Myles snorted, blowing the two colts' manes back as the searing hot air rushed past them. Then he leaned in and brought his face forward until it he was glaring directly into Snails' eyes from a few inches away.

"Never," he began quietly before turning and bringing himself to glare at Snips at the same uncomfortable distance to finish, "-again."

Myles walked back through the entrance of the hospital, the doors still held open by some shocked medical staff who had watched this scene unfold. The doors closed behind him as the staff ran to check on the two colts. Snips was shaking like a leaf and Snails seemed to have fainted.

Finally, he turned back to Twilight and his voice shook a little as he asked, "How long was I out?"

"It's been about three hours since the Ursa Minor attacked."

"Only three hou- MINOR?!" Myles interrupted himself as his mind caught up with the end of Twilight's statement. Twilight nodded nervously.

"Three hours?"

"Yes."

"Is… is everypony okay?"

"Everyone's fine," Twilight gently placed a hoof on his shoulder, "but you need rest!"

Myles sighed in frustration. "What happened?"

"I will tell you as soon as you get back to your hospital bed." Twilight stood between him and the town and gave him a stern glare. Myles groaned and made his way back inside. A nurse offered him a wheelchair but he walked right past them.

Back upstairs, Myles rolled back into his bed without a word. Rarity used her magic to float the cover over him and he muttered a quiet "Thank you," to her as he turned to face Twilight.

"Well, the town was attacked by an Ursa Minor," Twilight began nervously, but seemed at a loss for where to go next as Myles rolled his eyes. Applejack stepped forward. "You bein modest again? We told you, you're our friend no matter what. Twilight drove it off," she turned to Myles and finished with a proud grin.

"Twilight?" Myles eyes widened as he looked back to Twilight, who hung her head and looked away nervously. "What's wrong?" he asked her with genuine concern.

"She's just worryin' for no reason again. Did ya hear about Trixie?"

Myles frowned, "I've heard of her, but I've never had the displeasure of meeting her." Rarity giggled.

"She was spoutin' loads a hooey in the town square about bein the best magician in Equestria and telling everyone she'd beaten an Ursa Major while showing off her magic. Twilight thought we didn't like her because she used magic too, so she got all in a tizzy for nuthin'. Anywho, those two colts outside bought into Trixie's lies and went into the forest to lure an Ursa Major to town so Trixie could show how 'great an' powerful' she wus." Applejack laughed a bit.

"She pretty much just ran away, screaming," Rainbow interjected with a grin.

"Then Twilight stepped up and used her magic to lull the beast to sleep, give it a milk bottle and swaddle it to sleep. She knew what to do because she'd been researching Trixie's boasting." Rarity had continued.

"It was just cranky," Twilight seemed to have her confidence back, "it was just a baby after all." Myles groaned and let his head fall to his pillow, causing Twilight to rush to his side, "Are you alright?!"

"'m fine," Myles grumbled, "but I really, _really_ do not want to meet that monster's mommy." The girls giggled nervously. "So everypony's fine and there wasn't even any damage?"

"A few roofs," Twilight began, "the water tower will have to be replaced, your neighbor's wall and…" she trailed off nervously.

Myles sighed, "My house, I know." The girls looked shocked. "I was actually there for that bit." Myles tilted his head forward to look at them, "Is there anything left?"

"Just these," Twilight's eyes began to water as she placed his gala ticket and music crystal on the table next to him, "We- we found them in your hooves…" Twilight looked ready to cry, Myles leaned forward and put a hoof on her shoulder, "Hey! What's wrong? You saved the day! Everypony's fine."

"But you!" she stuttered, "Your house! You lost everything and we couldn't help! If I hadn't been too scared of what everyone might think of me, I would have acted earlier an- and-" Twilight stammered, "When I- I mean, when we found you… you were…" she trailed off weakly and Myles examined his leg, eyeing the dark purple bruises and a bandage around his shoulder that was tinted dark red with blood. He'd been cleaned up by the doctors and still looked pretty awful. He must've looked like a nightmare when the girls found him. Myles grinned as a thought occurred to him.

Myles began to chuckle a bit, catching the girls' attention as they looked aghast at his sudden mirth (the exception being Pinkie Pie, who joined him in his laughter), which had escalated to a full belly laugh which stuttered as he said "HA-Ow! Ow! Hahahahaow, it hurts to laugh! Hehheheheheow! Heheow!"

"Myles?" Twilight tried to get his attention, looking frightened as her friend shook with laughter. "Maybe you should lie down…"

"Don't worry about me," Myles said through his continued chuckles, "I probably gave poor Snips and Snails heart attacks! HaHehhoooooo-ha-ow!" He closed his eyes and leaned back. "I mean, I was trying to scare them enough to make them stay away from the forest, but I must've looked like a bucking zombie! HAHAHOOHAHEH!" Twilight cracked a smile but her eyes were still watering. Myles pulled her over into another hug. "I'm fine Twilight. And I'm sorry you had to deal with the ursa on your own."

"There's nothing you could have done…"

"Not at the time no," Myles shut his eyes, "but I'm going to have to write to Princess Celestia about getting a new supply of crystals, trying to find my own isn't working and if I want to do my job I'll need them. As soon as I get out I'm improving the perimeter as much as I can. The early warning system isn't enough and I don't want you or anyone else to get hurt if I can't protect the town myself."

"But Twilight can beat an Ursa Minor, probably an Ursa Major even," Twilights eyes widened and she shook her head at Rainbow Dash's words, but Rainbow missed this and continued, "Between the two of you, you can totally handle anything that comes out of that forest if you can already handle the biggest, baddest thing around, right?" Her grin faded as she saw Myles' grim expression. "Myles?"

Myles looked up and smiled, "Oh! Sorry, Rainbow, I spaced out there for a minute."

Twilight shot him a skeptical look, but he shook his head, yawned and stretched. "Well, you need to get your rest, we'll leave you to it. We're so glad you're feeling better though, Myles." The girls approached and hugged him again before filing out of the room. He waved goodbye to them, mouthing a silent "thank you," to Twilight. When he thought they'd gone, he sighed heavily and crossed his hooves over his eyes.

"Myles," Twilight's voice came from the doorway, where Myles spotted her when he sat up quickly, "What else is out there?"

He closed his eyes and turned on his side, "I don't know, Twilight, and hopefully we'll never have to find out, but I'll sleep easier after we've prepared for it."

**WOO! That definitely turned out a little different as usual, but for once I had a list of things I knew had to get into (or out of) this chapter and I got them all!**

**Firstly, just in case you were still wondering about the one I mentioned at the opening that was the result of a mistake in a previous chapter, I demolished Myles' house. Mean of me, I know, and not even strictly necessary, I suppose. In my excitement in getting the first two chapters out, I gave Myles house a bit of a generic description, completely forgetting the design I'd thought up that more suited his job, though that design is in question now as well. I could have gone back and rewrote the previous chapters to have the new house design, but I'm lazy by habit, and my brain immediately tried to talk me out of doing it. It wasn't long before it threw out the idea of destroying his house in the upcoming fight with the ursa and I was instantly taken with the idea. It was exciting and it gave me more interesting stuff to do with Myles in season 1. Don't expect to see it next chapter either, it'll take a few episodes for it to be built because I need him to have no place of his own for an upcoming episode. It didn't go down the way I thought though, originally the ursa was going to smack him through his house and then knock the rest down while pursuing him. At which point Myles and the ursa would continue to fight a bit while he called Trixie a coward only to be saved by Twilight himself. This went out the window when I had Myles' encounter and attempt to use the swamp monster to his advantage before the fight comes to Ponyville, meaning he had to run halfway across the Everfree forest. Twice. It also occurred to me that while Myles is stubborn and foolhardy at times, he is not stupid and his concern for the town would mean he would never face down the ursa at the town border with only his magic. I love how he came up with a last-ditch plan and how it worked out, but once again I took him out of a major part of the episode because I realized that a)he wasn't going to survive being crushed between boulders and the ruins of his house without using some magic and b) I wasn't too eager to type out the rest of the episode when Myles couldn't do much without messing up the episode's lesson.**

**Speaking of trying not to step on the episode's toes, I guess we didn't really touch on Myles crystal magic this chapter, but this was partially on purpose. When getting ready to write this one I put the episode on as I usually do, but I didn't remember the opening challenge by Trixie as well as I thought. I think I had misremembered it as the magical showdown she has with Twilight in a later episode, as I didn't recall Applejack and Rainbow Dash challenging Trixie. The clincher, however, was Trixie actually uttering something along the lines of "Anything you can do, I can do better!" Originally Myles was going to challenge Trixie and fail because his magic gave out on him, but once I realized some non-magical ponies rose to the challenge and Trixie had used those words which would've just been vague enough to allow Myles to drag crystal magic into the works. You may recall I spent most of the previous chapter introducing another reason for him being the ****_ONLY_**** pony able to perform crystal magic for now. So either Trixie would have to figure out crystal magic on the spot, which wasn't very plausible even before I deliberately wrote in a reason for even Twilight to be unable to do it, or Myles would have to miss the opening showdown. As I previously said, I was going to make up for this by including him heavily in the second half of the episode, but that didn't happen… oh well.**

**Another thing I wanted in this story and worked into this chapter was foreshadowing! Woo! It's almost like I remembered stuff about writing or something. Some of it wasn't all that subtle and I hope that at least one bit was subtle enough. We shall wait and see, since I obviously can't elaborate now**

**Oh and the secure perimeter was going to be a gradual change leading up to season 2, only improving when he made progress with his research. I like it better this way, though. Protecting his friends is a better reason and more incentive for him to make improvements at a faster pace now that Everfree has humbled him (kicked his rump). **

**Audience participation time! I'm a little tired of writing the word "perimeter" and I think Myles' next defensive/early-warning system will go by a snappy acronym, but I can't really think of one right now. Leave your suggestions for acronyms, with or without what it stands for, if I like the acronym enough I'll fill in the words. Oh and make sure to keep it clean. Like, not even "Bucknet" is acceptable. Hmmmm…. Actually….**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Y'know, when I saw what episode was up next, I was actually kinda worried, fearing I'd written myself into a corner at last. Then I realized that Myles' involvement in this episode would've been strictly voluntary anyways, not to mention it gave me a chance to…**

**Actually, I think I'll hold off on the explanation to til the end. Odds are pretty good what I type here won't actually have any relevance to the chapter I end up posting. Oh, except for one thing.**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

Dragonshy or Faultline

The twin crystals were still harmonized. Myles stood there with a curious look on his face. He stood once again in the room made of crystals he had dreamt about previously, this did not surprise him. What did surprise him was the fact that, from any observations he could make, it now stood exactly as he left it previously, right down to the pair of crystals he'd tuned into each other's frequency after talking to…

Myles resisted the urge to facehoof as he thought of an easier way to get answers.

"Princess Luna?" he called out in no direction in particular, "Your majesty, are you- GAH!" Myles recoiled and fell onto his haunches as he nearly collided with the royal alicorn he had been calling.

"Forgive us if we startled thee, brave Shardsole," though she spoke apologetically, he had no trouble hearing her voice over the collective din of the untuned crystals.

Myles dusted himself off, "That's perfectly fine, your majesty," he stood to his hooves and looked a little awkward as he spoke next. "Princess Luna, I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me about my dream."

Luna looked a little taken aback, "Dreams are often confusing things, even we, the Princess of the Night, cannot always decipher them, especially when they are merely stitched together from the frayed imagination of a stressed mind. However, we will answer to the best of our ability."

Myles looked thoughtful, "Right, that's actually what concerns me, do you recognize where we are now?"

"Of course, this is where we spoke to you after you had recovered from our conflict."

"Exactly, except the first time I was here, I thought you had brought me."

"Nay, we merely entered your own dream to communicate with you."

"I was afraid of that," Myles frowned, "In that case, can you tell me what this place is?"

"It is in your mind, Shardsole," Luna looked at him quizzically, "Do you not recall it?"

Myles shook his head, "No, aside from the time where I met you and one more instance since, but that's not all that worries me." He walked over towards the twin crystals.

"Pray tell us what else plagues you, Shardsole," Luna followed patiently.

"These," he indicated the two crystals that had caught his attention, "They're just like before, tuned into each other, which is one of the last things I did here before I left last time."

"We can perceive no difference, though truth be told we did not pay them any mind last time we were here."

"You can't hear that? Wait," Myles looked around at her in shock, "Can't you… hear any of them?"

Luna began to look concerned, "Nay, Shardsole, we cannot. As last time, this room holds only silence for us. Only now do we have reason to assume this is not the case for yourself. What can you hear?"

"Every last crystal in here is resonating with magic, each at its own tone and pace. If I listen carefully, I can hear how some of the crystals are meant to harmonize, but they are out of sequence, like an orchestra warming up for a performance, they each practice parts meant to go together, but without a conductor the melodies are difficult to hear."

"We see…" Luna indicated the twin crystals, "And so on your last visit, you harmonized these two?" Myles nodded.

"I didn't think it was that important at the time, it was just a dream, but when I came back and they were as I left them…"

"It is not unusual for dreams to have continuity, it is the unconscious mind picking up on the memory of the unconscious mind, this dream is the same simply because you remember it this way."

"See," Myles turned to her with a frown, "I thought that might be it after my last visit, but now I'm pretty sure it's not."

"What makes you think this?" Luna asked suspiciously.

He pointed a hoof at her, "You."

"Us?"

"General question here, if somepony dreams about being able to shrink themselves and walking around their own home as a tiny pony, can't you do the same upon entering that dream."

"This is correct," Luna frowned a bit, seeming to realize where this was headed.

"Then why can't you hear any crystals here, which is something I can do in reality. In my dream, you should be able to do whatever I can do, right?"

"That is something you know to be a unique skill that only you possess, it makes sense that your subconscious would match this experience."

Myles shook his head and laughed, "Interesting you should say that, Princess, because you said you've only ever heard silence here," he looked at her suspiciously, "And last time I had this dream, I had no idea nopony else could hear the crystals."

Luna's face deepened into a grimace and Myles was momentarily concerned he had offended the Princess until she spoke, "Once again, what we are told of you proves true, you are incredibly perceptive, even to the point of frustrating those around you who wish to allay your fears." She sighed and looked away, "I do not know why this dream is the way it is, but rest assured I-" she paused in surprise, "-we will look into the matter. It is probably nothing of concern. Please excuse us, morning approaches and we must see to the Moon."

Myles bowed politely as she vanished, not wanting to push his luck. He wasn't the best at reading pony's expressions, but he thought he may have upset Luna based on a few key clues. Her abrupt exit made Myles think she was offended after all, but he wasn't sure what could be so serious as to interrupt her royal third person way of speech, something he'd never heard her break in the few times they'd talked after she was Nightmare Moon. He supposed she must talk normally at some times for her to slip up, perhaps her and Celestia spoke normally when they were alone.

Myles continued to think this over when he heard a new sound that sounded familiar.

"-les."

He looked around for the voice and panicked a bit as the world around him began to blur and fade away.

"Myles!"

His eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, causing Twilight to recoil in shock in much the same fashion he had when he almost ran into Luna before.

"Oh," Myles said as he saw her pick herself up, "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Twilight said as she dusted herself off, "How are you feeling?"

"Same as ever," he replied with a frown, "I've been better, but I'm-"

"Better than you were, yeah," Twilight rolled her eyes as she heard the answer he'd repeated every day when she asked."

"Hey," Myles tried to look offended but was still smirking, "That's my line!"

Twilight frowned at him, "Anyways, I just wanted to let you know the first shipment of crystals from Canterlot arrived a short time ago. They're out next to where your house was when you want to begin working with them."

Myles grinned, "Finally, was wondering what was taking them so long."

He hopped out of the guest bed and sloppily threw the covers back over it, walking between it and Twilight's bed on the upper level of the library and heading downstairs. He'd been staying here ever since he was released from the hospital, which had been earlier than the doctor had told him initially because the nurses needed to attend to other patients and he refused to stay in his bed, insisting on walking about the hospital to stretch his legs and going downstairs to the waiting room to watch people come and go. Twilight had suggested he stay at the library and the hospital staff had eagerly agreed. Twilight had begun to regret this decision, Myles restlessness had been getting on her and Spike's nerves, but Myles didn't seem to notice. Twilight carefully made the guest bed and was about to make a comment when she heard Myles voice from downstairs.

"Hey Twilight…"

"What is it, Myles," she asked irritably as she approached him where he stood with the library's front door open. She followed his gaze upwards and gawked at the sight that met her vision.

"I feel like this would have come up earlier but… that mountain doesn't happen to be a volcano, does it?" They heard a loud belch from behind them and looked round as a burst of green fire faded from over Spike's mouth and formed a scroll. Twilight ran over and took the scroll from the sleepy dragon's claws.

"Message for you, sir," he said groggily and was snoring deeply less than a second later.

Twilights eye's scanned the message frantically, seeming to grow more shocked as she read.

"You stay here, I need to get the others," Twilight spoke quickly as she ran out the front door. Myles rolled his eyes and rested his head on one of his hooves as he leaned on the table and dozed off again.

"What in the name of all things cinnamon swirl is a full-grown dragon doing here in Equestria?" Myles woke to hear Applejack asking as her and the others entered the library.

"Sleeping," Twilight stated simply as she cracked open a book.

"Huh?" the other girls asked in unison.

"According to Princess Celestia, he's taking a nap, his snoring is what's causing all this smoke."

Myles looked idly out the window, tuning most of the conversation out until Twilight said, "Alright everypony, I need you to gather supplies quickly. We've got a long journey ahead of us, we'll meet back here in less than an hour."

Myles grinned and began to head out the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Twilight asked, narrowing her eyebrows at his jovial expression.

Myles looked a little confused, "Ummmmm, to get some crystals? To help handle the dragon? I gotta admit I zoned out there for a bit, but I thought that was what the big meeting was about."

Twilight nodded but looked serious as she spoke, "Right, and you are staying here."

"Like hay I am, you're going to need m-" Myles was cut off as Twilight pushed a hoof onto the wound on his shoulder, which was still wrapped up in bandages, causing Myles to fall backwards and wince in pain. "Hey!"

"You are still recovering from the fight with the last monster that tried to eat you. You need as much rest as you can get… you know," Twilight frowned, "as much as it's possible to get despite being you."

"Right," Myles said with a growl, "And if you think I'm letting my friends go and challenge something bigger and nastier while I sit at home, you're got another thing coming! You could get fried and eaten up there, or worse!"

"That's very sweet of you to be concerned for us, Myles, but I think we can handle the situation, especially with Fluttershy's help."

"Fluttershy?! Seriously?"

"Yes, her peaceful way with animals is the best way to resolve this without anypony getting hurt."

"You do realize you'll have to drag her up that mountain right? By the time you make it, we'll be breathing smoke down here! We have to act fast!"

"You're absolutely right, Myles," a sad expression crossed Twilight's face, "and just so you know, I'm sorry about this, but we just don't have time to argue."

"Sorry about what? Let's g-" Myles eyes widened as his vision was filled with a bright purple light and everything faded to black.

Myles' eyes snapped open and he shot upright in his bed for the second time that day. He jumped out of the guest bed and ran downstairs, almost trampling Spike as he chased after numerous small animals. "Hey!" Spike yelled as he dodged out from underhoof and glared at Fluttershy's rabbit, who had slipped away from him again.

"Sorry Spike, I've gotta go before the others leave!"

"They already did," Spike explained, still annoyed.

"What?!" Myles shouted and flung open the front door, spotting the plume of smoke still pouring out from the mountain.

"Twilight and the others left hours ago, they have to be halfway up the mountain by now," Spike finished off by pouncing towards as squirrel and grunting as he face planted into the floor. Myles looked up and saw the sun almost at the top of its arc in the sky. Glancing at the clock confirmed his suspicions, it was almost noon.

"So she just knocked me out and left me here, huh?" Myles asked with a grim expression.

"Yeah," Spike said as he tried to catch another small critter, "Said something about you slowing them down with-" Spike stopped abruptly as the front door to the library slammed, he was about to follow when Angel bounced up and kicked off of his head, hopping by with barely audible laughter. "Get BACK HERE!" he shouted as he gave chase again.

Myles stalked up to the wagon at the edge of the forest and sat down. He glanced at the spot where his house used to stand and snorted. There was no debris from his home and his neighbors house had been patched up and even repainted (the same sickening color it was before, he noted with a frown), all that remained was the long groove in the ground where the rocks beneath his home used to be. He sighed and turned back to the wagon.

Levitating a few crystals out, he examined them up close. They were good enough quality, though they weren't gemstones, obviously. The Princess had been generous and understanding, but had known from his previous reports that gemstone quality wasn't as important as minimal impurities and general consistency.

He placed the crystals in front of him and began to tune them with the same spell he'd used against the Ursa Minor, this time layering it across five crystals. After they harmonized, he waited a moment or two before pushing against the barrier, the crystals hummed as they resisted his hoof. The crystal in the middle began to move back with that section of the barrier and the other portions glowed brighter as they bent and took some of the stress from the middle section. He looked curiously at the effect, he hadn't intended to give each crystal a specific section of barrier, but it appeared that the sections reacted to each other like scales, pushing against the adjacent sections and distributing the load. This is still technically what he had been attempting, but he had assumed the barriers would adapt by rerouting magical energy to points of stress. Now that he thought about it, he'd have to set up another layer of detection spells to be feeding information into each section for this to work properly.

He huffed and his head drooped in shame. He'd been lucky the magic had worked out after all, if it had done things exactly as he had imagined, he'd have been bear-food. Thinking back, he supposed he had been imagining the crystals as anchor points, like metal joists supporting either side of a plow. Distributing them across the five crystals, he had thought of them as a net. He scowled a bit at his own foolishness. He levitated more crystals from the wagon and tried not to think about how he was only alive because of a lucky accident.

He sighed as he tried to remember how many crystals had formed the detection barrier, he thought he'd used around 120, but he had been so giddy that day he couldn't be sure. He set about enchanting that many crystals, being careful to keep them in the right order and making the barriers expand as the crystals got farther away from each other. He extended this across the perimeter and pressed a hoof against it, frowning as the barrier leaned inwards at his touch alone. He brought the crystals back and added another layer of crystals in front, connecting each one between the originals. He expanded this barrier and found that while it gave a little, after a short time the barrier pushed him back with great force. Layering the plates had clearly helped. Collapsing the barrier one last time, he tuned them all carefully, making sure they reacted to the same frequency before tuning a new crystal to that one.

Listening carefully, he made the new crystal respond in much the same way the detection barrier had, feeding back a small scale model of the barrier as a whole. He closed his eyes to focus as he listened to the barrier crystals form a multi-layered harmony with the control crystal. As he opened his eyes, Myles felt tired and realized that sweat was pouring down from his forehead. He wiped it away and tapped the control crystal, watching as the barrier activated and rubbed against itself.

Then he shifted his hoof sideways on the crystal, noting as he did that some of the panels of the barrier grew brighter as he did. Frowning, he toggled the crystal with his magic and it started up equally, then brought a hoof forward, not touching the crystal but hovering inches away from it. He watched as corresponding sections of the barrier lit up and grew stronger and toggled the crystal on and off. The alterations seemed to stay until he toggled the crystal twice more, reverting to their original state. He growled and lifted the barriers into place around the forest again, this time anchoring them into the ground. He'd have to move up the detection barrier to make it effective, but this would help a little.

Myles scowled as he eyed the bracer with his detection crystal in it, his horn briefly emitted a bright light as he cut into it and made a space for the control crystal, which he slotted in and then used the excess leather to secure in place. He shook his hoof about to make sure it stayed, looking a bit more crazed than usual before sitting back down. He huffed a bit, having accomplished what he set out to do but feeling more incompetent than before. All his new discoveries had proven was that he was just as useless as the others seemed to think. Looking up, he noticed the smoke from the mountain beginning to disperse, evidently cut off at the source.

He sighed in relief this time. Glad that the girls were successful. He supposed he still didn't know for sure if they were okay, but he had a feeling they were all fine. Twilight had faith in them and it seemed more and more to Myles that she had a better handle on the situation than he did. Perhaps she had been right to question him when he'd been able to hear the crystals, without that one advantage he was still just somepony with no idea what he was doing. He felt another wave of fatigue hit him as he glanced up.

The mid-afternoon sun still beat down upon him. He considered returning to the library, but decided he'd get no rest there as Spike was likely still unable to cope with the numerous critters he was watching over. Myles idly wondered how he would handle that situation and came up with nothing aside from caging the creatures up. Fluttershy clearly knew what she was doing, despite how frightened she always seemed, Twilight had good reason to trust her against a dragon. He grunted in frustration and crawled underneath the cart of crystals, taking shade from the sun.

"Found him! C'mere!"

Myles eyes bulged as he felt something grip one of his rear hooves and dragged him out from under the cart. He was roughly rolled over and he blinked as his vision was filled with rainbow-colored hair. He felt a hoof come down heavily on his chest and he reeled as the world spun from the onslaught of sound that came next.

"What's the big idea?! We've been looking ALL OVER for you! OUCH!" Rainbow grunted as Myles kicked her off of him, releasing the pressure so he could breathe. The manticore had seemed lighter, he thought as he coughed roughly, but then Rainbow was probably pushing down with her wings. His eyes watered as he caught his breath and his vision reeled as more noise echoed around him, though this time not directed at him.

"RAINBOW DASH! I know you're frustrated but that's no reason to go attackin' the poor guy. You know he's still a healin from that mess with the ursa!" Applejack was off to the side, scolding Rainbow Dash. Her last comment made Myles scowl and he rose to his feet, stumbling against the cart and hitting it with his wounded shoulder. He gritted his teeth and grunted, shaking his head and stalking away.

"Where do you think you're going?" Myles had a sudden feeling of déjà vu as Twilight repeated the same phrase she'd used earlier. Though it seemed to be laced with concern, Myles could still hear the impending scolding prepped behind it and he turned away, heading directly for the forest and towards the sunset.

"Hey! Get back here- oof!" Twilight had followed close behind him as he entered the forest, but just before getting inside he triggered the control crystal with his magic. He turned and saw Twilight picking herself up off the ground, having hit the barrier. "What the-?"

"I got him!" Rainbow yelled, diving for the barrier and bouncing off harshly and recovering in mid-air. "Owww…" Rainbow rubbed her head and sunk to the ground where Applejack was waiting.

"Serves ya right! Myles?"

Myles turned without a word. The girls called after him and watched as he lay down just on the other side of the barrier. He frowned and his horn lit up. The crystals that formed the detection barrier lifted from the ground and moved out of sight, further into the woods.

"Myles?" Twilight called out nervously.

"Go home."

"But-"

"Go home," Myles snorted, "Go back to your lives and just leave me alone."

"But Myles," Applejack pouted, "We need ya!"

"No," Myles huffed, "You're better off without me, you all proved that today. I'd have only slowed you down." Twilight looked hurt as she heard her own words flung back at her with such venom.

"What?! Why you-!" Rainbow flew forwards, forgetting about the barrier until she bounced off of it again. "Better off?! Do you know what we went through today?"

"You walked up a mountain and Fluttershy convinced the dragon to leave, exactly as Twilight said you would," Myles still hadn't turned around, but they saw his shoulders sag as he spoke.

"Ummmmm… no." a small voice said, causing Myles to turn around and see Fluttershy had stepped forwards. Myles looked skeptical.

"Really?"

"Oh… I suppose technically you could say it did go like that, but it really didn't."

Myles looked shocked, that was the longest sentence he'd heard Fluttershy speak without interrupting herself. Fluttershy seemed to take this as a cue, took a deep breath and continued.

"I'm afraid of dragons, but I didn't tell the others. They basically had to drag me up the mountain and I may have triggered an avalanche on the way, but they didn't give up on me. They all tried to move the dragon themselves, but they couldn't." She smiled a little, "it wasn't until the dragon threatened them that I found the courage to stand up to it."

"Good for you, Fluttershy," Myles rolled his eyes, "Proved my point exactly."

"Ummmmm… no. Actually, I was still scared out of my mind but I wanted to protect my friends so badly it didn't matter. I shudder to think what might have happened to them if I hadn't been there and wondered how much worse I'd feel if I'd been forced to stay behind. Of course, then I remembered Twilight had done exactly that to you."

Twilight stepped forwards, "I'm sorry Myles, I was only thinking of your safety and the mission, but I didn't realize how much pain it might cause to save you. And it was wrong of me to assume that you'd slow us down by fighting everything yourself."

"So?" Myles huffed again.

"What?"

"So you hurt my feelings. Oooooooh, that stings!" He groaned sarcastically, "It still doesn't change the fact that you were completely right to leave me behind. I'm still wounded from the last stupid mess I got myself into and you're dead right, I'd have stopped and kicked around every creature we met. I don't think about it, I just do it." His head sank onto his hooves, "and it only ever makes a huge mess and get myself hurt. I'm just lucky I didn't get anyone else hurt with my stupidity. I'm a liability and a waste of space."

"Myles," Rarity spoke up, "You could only be further from the truth if you actively drove it away. You would have been a massive help today and we're grateful for all that you've done for us, you've protected us and accomplished so much…" She raised her chin in defiance, "It was long past due for us to do something for you. It's not fair for us to depend on your strength when it costs you so much."

"But-"

"Just listen," Twilight interrupted, "I've seen you face down a manticore with a smile on your face. I watched you tell a thousand year old alicorn she'd have to kill you to stop you and then bring her to her knees using magic that you yourself said you couldn't preform. And you're smart, too. I watched you completely reinvent the way you do your job of protecting Ponyville in less than a minute after depriving yourself of sleep for months. And then you did it again after running across the Everfree forest, and then again while we were dealing with the dragon!"

"It didn't work out right though, I tried something and got something entirely different, it was only luck that it worked at all."

"I don't believe that at all," Twilight frowned, "Maybe you don't think you know what you're doing, but you do it anyways and you do it brilliantly, even if you take a few tries you don't take the time to worry about whether or not it'll work the next time, you just get up and try again until it's done. You obviously figured out several things with the newest barrier."

"Only that the last one was luck, I found it by accident."

"But you found it and figured it out, and once you did you improved on it and made it good enough to protect the whole town. Maybe it didn't work out like you wanted, but you made it work. Maybe it was intuitive, maybe you got it subconsciously, but I don't think so, do you want to know what I think?"

"What?" Myles asked flatly.

"I think those crystals realized you weren't going to give up and decided it'd be easier to cooperate rather than resist until you found out the specifics." Twilight grinned.

Myles chuckled lightly, still sniffing, then kept chuckling. Gradually it grew into a full laugh and kept escalating until he was rolling on the ground, clutching his stomach and shaking with laughter. "So what," he gasped between breaths, "You're saying I scared them into working?"

"Something like that," Twilight said with a smile, "I think those crystals believed in you as much as I did, as all of us do. I'm sorry for letting you think we didn't, I just wanted to help."

Myles got to his hooves and tapped the control crystal. Still shaking with laughter, he trotted across the threshold to meet the girls in a hug. He grinned as he pulled away, "Thanks everypony. Just one thing though," the girls looked at him curiously, "I get to go a few rounds with the next dragon before you figure out how to get rid of it, deal?"

Twilight smiled, "No promises."

**I hope this chapter still works. And that it's still a good read. It's the first one I've had to do a major rewrite on. See at first I didn't even put on the episode since I knew Myles wouldn't be a part of the main plot this time, I only brought it up later to get the brief dialogue at the beginning straight. So the story itself spun out of what Myles had to be doing while the girls were gone, which was finally upgrading the towns defenses. While I did that, I hadn't initially planned to have Twilight knock him out before they left. Once she had, I ran with it and…**

**Well I ran a bit further than I wanted to. Let's just say I wrote something out that I really liked and fit in with Myles character development, but it was too soon because of something that happened last episode and it almost felt a little contradictory. I kept some of it, like Twilights run down of all the crazy stupid stuff he's done and how they'd never have done any of that. But it was originally under a different context. I had begun to realize the awkwardness as I wrote that section and simply saved it as a draft before even getting to the part where they talked about doing it to protect him. While I do really like what was written before, I had to cut a good portion of it out because it didn't work at this time. However I still have the first draft saved, so when the time is right I can bring that stuff out where it makes sense.**

**I'm still unsure about this chapter, but I think I've dodged completely undermining my own character's development. He's humbled and then encouraged by his friends as he was supposed to be, instead of… well I can't talk about that.**

**Oh he'll still be stupid and brash when he's not thinking things through, so don't worry about that, but at least he knows this costs his friends as much as it does him and may be a bit smarter about it. Maybe. As I've said I'm writing most of this on the fly and up until this chapter it's all flowed nicely, so if things get out of hand I'll come back and fix this, but I'm satisfied for now and I hope you are as well.**

**And next chapter will contain a bit more crystal magic and a mostly non-serious plot, as I had intended to do after demolishing Myles' house, but this chapter sort've kept things serious longer than intended. I hope you're still enjoying this regardless.**

**-Dr Spacewizard Esq.**

**(Still not gotten any suggestions for acronyms and my mind is a blank on this point. What? You didn't think I was actually going to use "Bucknet," did you?)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Ah here we go, now I'm nervous. Can't tell you why of course. Gee, I'm doing that a lot lately aren't I? Sorry, I can't elaborate just yet, but I assure you it's only to make the story more fun and not to irritate you.**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

Look Before You Sleep or Purely Structural Bonds

"Applejack! Rarity!" Myles grumbled as he woke up to Twilight shouting outside. He gazed down at the crystal he'd been working on and frowned. It had once been two crystals, but was now fused into one, though in such a crude fashion that the place where the two crystals joined was clearly defined. They also still acted as two different crystals.

Looking up at the chalkboard he'd been using, he scratched his chin and considered what went wrong. He traced out the shape of the two crystals and then the result of his attempted fusion. He had deliberately chosen opposing colors to make progress easier to see, so he was able to accurately mark out the places where the crystals met. He listened to the two vastly different tones emitted from each crystal and a strange noise originating from the center. Myles sketched a bit more on the board before he yawned and made his way downstairs, quickly searching out a book on sound and cracking it open to check something as Twilight let Rarity inside.

"Woah nelly!" Myles heard Applejack say from outside, "Is inside a tree really the best place to be during a lightning storm?"

"It is if you have a magical lightning rod protecting your home like I do," Twilight smiled, "C'mon in!"

Myles waved at Rarity and Applejack, who didn't seem to notice him because of a heated discussion they were having. He shook his head and took the book he was reading upstairs, setting it down next to the crystal

Myles flinched as he heard Twilight's voice rose to a painfully high pitch and he looked over the railing to see the girls downstairs with green mud over their faces. He chuckled to himself as he spotted Twilight's copy of "Slumber 101: All you've ever Wondered about Slumber Parties, but were Afraid to Ask" open on her reading table. Twilight had shown him the book the first night he had stayed in her home and Myles had almost hated to turn her down given how excited she seemed to be about the subject. He managed to get out of it by bringing up his injuries and the fact that normally that sort of activity was restricted to girls. Twilight had seemed offended at first, but fortunately the book seemed to agree with Myles for some important reasons that Twilight refused to divulge when asked. She'd also seemed nervous when he asked, so Myles had dropped the subject fairly quickly.

Thunder boomed outside, causing Myles to flinch again. Presumably Rarity and Applejack were now stuck here and had cooperated to humor Twilights enthusiasm. He chuckled again and returned to his work.

He eyed the gap in the crystal closely. The intention had been to use the vibration generated by the magic to make the crystals more malleable so they could be joined. Without direction, the latent energy could theoretically destabilize the crystalline structure enough to allow the two to be bonded along similar lines, at which point the energy would be allowed to flow freely between them and would eventually cause the two pieces to grow back together. Hopefully, this process could be used to repair crystals that he lost to mistakes in his research. He'd already lost a fourth of the Princess' first delivery to such experiments and realized he couldn't continue without trying to repair them in order to not strain the limits of Celestia's generosity. Once he'd thought of the idea, it also occurred to him that success would mean the ability to make larger crystals that could feasibly channel more powerful magic. Right now the spells were limited in power and complexity because the crystals could only contain so much energy without the waves overlapping and disrupting each other, which overloaded the crystals until they shattered violently.

The breakthrough had also inspired a few more ideas for Myles, which he now kept recorded on the third crystal attached to his armband, a simple audio recording and playback spell allowing him to keep track of his ideas. Twilight had suggested he write all these things down, but he insisted it was a waste of time until he could confirm his theories and make any of the ideas work.

Myles consulted the book for more information and the nature of wave transmissions and pulled his armband up, tapping the recording crystal. "Crystal bonding note: try forcing waves over gap to properly align the structure. Magic may help bridge the molecular gap and create bonds." He tapped the crystal again and his horn lit up as he prepared to test this. He stopped when he felt something prod his shoulder. He turned around to see Twilight, secretly grateful she had removed the mud mask. He noticed her skin did seem rejuvenated, as the mask was supposed to be able to do, but Myles thought that might have to do with her current mood than anything else as she grinned at him and tried not to laugh.

"Myles," she whispered, "I know you're not supposed to be involved in this, but can you help me out with something?"

Myles shrugged, "Sure, what do you need?"

Myles' pressed his lips together tightly to keep himself from laughing as he waited behind the pile of books Twilight had indicated. He listened carefully for his cue.

"What's next? Ooh!" Twilight spoke excitedly and convincingly. Myles was actually impressed with how genuine her surprise sounded, even though he had caught Twilight reading the book a few times before and knew she must've read it from cover to cover by now. "It says here we have to tell ghost stories! Who wants to go first?" She asked the other two excitedly.

"Me!" Applejack raised her hoof and dived directly into her story, "I'd like to tell y'all the terrifying tale of the prissy ghost, who drove everypony crazy with her unnecessary neatness! Ooooooooooh!" Myles frowned, he hadn't spent much time with Applejack personally, but given her upbringing he had assumed she had heard a ghost story before. This one sounded more like a joke. "I'm sure y'all are familiar with that one?" She said as she narrowed her eyes at Rarity.

"Never heard of it," Rarity replied curtly, "But I have a much better one. It's the horrifying story of the messy, **_in_**considerate ghost, who irritated everypony within a hundred miles! OooOOOOoooooo-oooh!" Rarity finished rather lamely as it began to dawn on Myles that either they were still upset with each other or had only ever heard two of the most conveniently worded and boring ghost stories ever to have existed.

"That's not a real story," Applejack interjected rudely, "You made it up!"

"It is a ghost story," Rarity spoke matter-of-factly, "They're all made up!" Myles had to place a hoof over his mouth to keep from laughing. One point for Rarity, he thought just before lightning flashed again and the lights went out. Twilight turned on a flashlight and shone it up into her face.

"I've got one," she began excitedly as she set a lantern down on the floor and put away the flashlight, "This story is called… the Legend of the Headless Horse! It was a dark and stormy night, just like this one. And three ponies were having a slumber party, just like this one." Myles clamped his jaw shut as Twilight trailed off for maximum creepiness. He managed to keep himself in check as she continued, relaxing until she began to wrap it up. "And just when the last pony thought she was safe… there, standing right behind her… just inches away was… the HEADLESS HORSE!" Twilight shouted the last part as Myles leapt out from behind the books and reared up on his back legs, being careful to keep the sheet over his head as instructed. He waved his forehooves about in the air and was satisfied to hear a scream from Applejack and Rarity each. He even thought he heard Twilight gasp a little before he fell onto all fours and she tugged the sheet from his head.

"Thanks Myles," Twilight giggled as she and Myles hoof-bumped in victory at their successful prank.

"No problem, Twilight," he said as he made his way back upstairs.

He checked his note crystal to remind himself where he was before resuming his work. His forehead began to sweat as he carefully pushed energy between the crystals and after a short time he was pleased to see the dividing line between them had gotten narrower and some of the colors had blended at the line of bonding. He wiped his brow and was going to begin again when Twilight tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned around, she pressed something into his hoof before throwing her forelegs around his neck and hugging him.

"Thanks again, Myles," she said as she pulled back, she seemed thoughtful for a moment, "Don't feel you have to stay up here either, you're welcome to join in the fun!"

Myles glances down at the object in his hand and sniffed, evidently they had made s'mores. He grinned when he replied, "It's fine Twilight. Your book says no boys and I know you like to do everything by the book, so thanks for letting me help with the ghost story and for the s'more, but you can pretend I'm not even here if you want." She smiled at him as he pushed the s'more into his mouth before turning back to his crystals. She threw one leg around him and hugged him again, briefly pressing her cheek to his and then taking off downstairs. Myles shook his head and resumed his work as he finished chewing the s'more.

Over the next several minutes, he managed to get the crystals to fuse a little more but felt tired once again as he did. He frowned and resisted the temptation to look downstairs as he heard raised voices, but left the girls to their party as he grabbed another crystal and used it to store some energy. He directed the crystal to the line between the other two and used it to build up and focus the energy at the other two. The line had almost completely disappeared by now and he grinned as he listened to the crystals hum at almost the same tone. The gap acted much the same way as a large impurity in disrupting the flow of magic somewhat, but the crystals were technically one now. With some refinement and practice, he could perfect the process and fix or recombine crystals at will. He tapped his note crystal and began to speak, "Crystal Bonding note: channeling magic along the gap does indeed align the structures, try doing this before crystals make contact to see bonding resul-OOF!"

His head pitched forward as he was struck from behind. He tapped the note crystal, figuring he had enough to go on and rounded on his attacker only to see Rarity and Applejack caught up in an enthusiastic pillow-fight downstairs. He glanced behind him and picked up the errant pillow with his magic. He debated on who to aim for when he saw Twilight get hit multiple times and collapse under a pile of pillows between the other two. He redirected one of Rarity's pillows to go around Twilight and towards Applejack. Then he flung his own pillow at Rarity. He pumped his hoof in victory as both ponies were knocked over from the force of impact. Twilight burst out from between the pillows and spat out a few feathers, "Maybe we should just call it a night and get some sleep."

Myles pushed his worktable and the chalkboard to the side as the girls cleaned up their mess and came upstairs. Applejack and Rarity both playfully punched him in the shoulder as they passed. At least he thought they meant it to be playful, neither of them had smiled but their anger still seemed directed towards each other. He was about to say something to cheer them up when he realized they had both angrily flopped down into the guest bed. Well, Applejack flopped, Rarity squeezed herself in between the sheets, but she did so angrily. Myles would have laughed if he hadn't been so concerned with the problem this presented. He stopped Twilight as she passed by and spoke quietly so as not to disturb the others.

"Ummm, Twilight?"

"Yeah?"

"Where am I supposed to sleep?"

"Where do you think Myles? In the guest bed, of cou-oh!" She stopped as she looked over and saw the bed occupied. A strange expression crossed her face as she looked up at Myles again. "Well… I guess you'll have to bunk with me, that's okay, right?" She laughed oddly as she gestured over to the bed and invited him to get in first. He tenderly got in and scooted as far as he could towards the edge, not wanting to crowd Twilight or otherwise make her uncomfortable. He flipped over so his back was facing towards the middle of the bed and shifted a little as he felt the bed move when Twilight got in and tightened the covers over them both. He jumped a little as one of Twilight's hooves brushed against him and he could have sworn he heard her giggle a bit.

He had considerable trouble getting to sleep, not just because of the arrangements, but also kept awake by his own thoughts. He didn't care much for what people thought of him, having had too much experience with trying and failing to live up to pony's expectations of him as a child, but he was concerned with what people might assume because of this. Rarity and Applejack were too focused on each other at the moment to have noticed, but eventually the fact that Myles and Twilight were sharing a bed would be noticed. Applejack might see the practical angle, but undoubtedly Rarity would read too much into the situation and spread rumors. He'd dealt with rumors before but he didn't want to complicate Twilight's life with them. The idea of her and him… together hadn't really occurred to Myles previously.

Certainly he'd noticed she looked pleasing and he enjoyed her company, but she'd always been a friend in the short time they'd known each other. He thought back on the many times she had hugged him and wondered if there had been something more to them, then he shook his head. She had hugged the others on several occasions and the others had hugged him as well. They were friends, nothing more. Myles remembered earlier when she'd pressed her cheek to his and the warmth he'd felt at that contact. His cheeks burned a bit as he recalled it but again he put it down to them being friends and her good mood tonight. She'd been so upset with him when she thought he was tricking people about being good with crystals and he had finally caught on in the past few weeks that his presence was grating on her nerves.

No, they were friends and that was all. As he thought this, Myles couldn't help but feel saddened and his cheeks burned again as he realized this. Uh oh. He tried to drive the thought of her from his mind, but suddenly couldn't think of anything except all the times they'd been close, this caused him to squirm nervously.

Okay, Myles thought, so you like her, no biggie. But she's still a friend and if you say or do anything about it that might change. If he wanted to keep their friendship intact he'd just have to be careful around her from now on. Myles resolved to think more on crystals to distract himself. She didn't know and he was alert to the situation, so everything would be fine. He'd just act as though nothing had changed and everything would be fi-

Myles eyes bugged out as he felt a leg come to rest over his neck. He tried to slow his breathing and keep calm. Listening carefully, he could hear Twilight breathing slowly and peacefully, meaning she was asleep. Okay, so after tonight, which was going to continue being incredibly tense and awkward, then everything would be fine.

Myles persisted in keeping himself still and calm, but he had increasing trouble as he heard a hissed argument from the guest bed. He couldn't make out the voices, but he heard rustling of sheets as they evidently fought over bed space. He gulped as he felt Twilight stir, keeping himself absolutely still. He finally let out a sigh of relief as she removed her hoof but he quickly tried to disguise it as the soft breathing of sleep. He placed a hoof over his eyes as he heard Twilight and the others talking, being careful to keep his breathing steady and his eyes relaxed as he feigned sleep. He extended his hoof to cover his ears as Twilight began to shout at her other friends.

Despite this, Myles was more comfortable than he had been all night and actually started to doze off for real when he felt a sudden draft and instinctively pulled the covers tighter around him. He held his breath as he waited for Twilights reaction, but he realized she was still speaking to the others. He contemplated "waking up" to see what was going on, but before he could the sheets were ripped off of him and replaced with something wet and scratchy. Myles' eyes flipped open and he looked down to see himself pinned to the bed by… a tree branch?

Looking around, he saw the entire upper level of the library covered in pieces of a tree. His ears were filled with the howling of the wind so he couldn't hear his friends, but he was relieved to see them all standing amid the branches. He attempted to clear the debris off his chest, but found it was too heavy and probably braced against the wall. He was about to call out when the branch suddenly disappeared in a magical flash and was replaced with a small, artful shrub. He sat up and took a deep breath.

"Myles!" Twilight threw her hooves around his neck again and Myles looked away to hide the redness spreading across his face. "Are you alright?"

"Ye- yeah," he stuttered, then shivered to keep up an act. "Just cold that's all. Everypony else okay?"

The others answered that they were and seemed fully awake, so they elected to continue their party and asked if he wanted to join. He faked a yawn and declined politely, which caused the girls to giggle a bit. He rolled over and shut his eyes as they went down stairs. He wrapped the covers loosely around him to keep himself warm but leave room for Twilight. As soon as he thought of Twilight next to him, however, his cheeks burned again and he loosened the covers a bit. He heard giggling from downstairs and covered his ears, determined to be asleep before Twilight and the others finished the second half of their party. Between the relief of being alone in the bed and the fatigue from being awake up to now, he managed to drift into slumber relatively quickly.

When he awoke the next day, Twilight had already woken up and the others had gone back home after the storm ended. He didn't dare ask Twilight if she'd gotten back into the same bed as him, fearing his expression would give something away. Just act like before and it'll be fine, he thought to himself. Yeah, he couldn't help thinking afterwards, because everything always works out fine for me…

**Woo! Finally! Gotta admit I've been looking forwards to this episode for a few reasons. For one, it's my favorite episode from season one, because Applejack and Rarity get more character in this episode and they play off each other wonderfully, its one of the funnier ones and we get to hear Rarity's over the top "it is on!" **

**Also, I knew I had wanted Myles in this episode, not only because it's a favorite of mine, but also because it put him in close proximity to Twilight, setting him up for the realization about his feelings for her. Only on rewatching the episode did I realize that Twilight had a guest bed, which I started Myles off using a little earlier, and even better, that said bed would be full with Rarity and Applejack occupying it. I wasn't sure how it would go, only that it would be awkward and hopefully fun to read. Originally he wasn't going to even fully realize anything this episode, but I've been sneaking in (hopefully) subtle hints of affection in the past few chapters and it just came out that way. Of course, now the real fun begins. Don't get your hopes up for him to confess his feelings anytime soon, Myles is pretty good at keeping a secret, but things will still get uncomfortable for him as he hides this.**

**Man I hope you're still reading this, the further in I get the more excited I get about getting close to stuff I have planned and the more I like how stuff works out when I wing it. It's pretty safe to say by now that I'm gonna keep going.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Not sure about these next couple of chapters. Then again, I was unsure of even starting this. Take from that what you will.**

**I don't own My Little Pony**

Bridle Gossip or Silence Will Fall

"Wow, what a gorgeous day!" Twilight mused out loud.

"Rainbow Dash must've gotten up early for once and cleared all the clouds away." Spike speculated from his back. Myles chuckled a bit, following behind Twilight as they walked through town.

The other two continued talking as he tried to focus on new ideas for his crystals. His efforts to figure out the unique properties of the materials and their applications for magic had redoubled in the last few weeks. For now they were only hampered by his lack of a house, a problem which would soon be fixed if the half-built tower at the edge of Everfree Forest was any indication. He had designed parts of it himself and initially he had planned to build it using crystals to set pieces in place. Twilight had talked him out of this and he had handed over his shoddy blueprints to professional construction ponies. They had said they could manage it and so far Myles was impressed with how closely they'd stuck to his design. Of course, Twilight had been right and a few things had had to be changed for practical and safety reasons. He was fairly certain Twilight had been smiling when she reminded him of this, but he wasn't sure if she was teasing him or not. Actually, Myles wasn't very sure of anything concerning Twilight Sparkle anymore.

That was the other reason he'd thrown himself into his research. He'd been having trouble looking Twilight in the eye since his realization concerning his feelings for her. Every time they spoke he felt on edge out of concern that she might find out and their friendship might crumble. Myles had previously had friends who had abandoned him and was not eager to feel that pain again, but this seemed even worse, the thought of her never speaking to him again filled him with dread. Over the course of trying not to think about her, he discovered several things he would miss about her if she shunned him. Her laugh, her smile, her tendency to completely overanalyze a problem scientifically before considering there might be a simple solution and any number of little things he found brightened his day every time he saw them.

He had almost rationalized himself into telling her, fearing that keeping this secret would tear apart their friendship as well, but then he had realized the situation was broader than the two of them. He and Twilight represented two of the Elements of Harmony, one of the most powerful forces known to ponykind and a tool essential to keeping ponies safe from magical threats. However, that force was based on the magic of friendship and Twilight had confirmed that the Elements wouldn't work if they stopped being friends. He had asked her hypothetically so as not to raise suspicion, but it confirmed what he'd feared. Twilight and he could never be anything more or less than friends, since one day the Fate of Equestria may depend on that connection.

So he continued hiding, keeping his distance from Twilight as much as possible while staying under the same roof with her. She tended not to disturb him when he worked on his crystals as he needed to be able to hear them to fine tune them. So whenever she was home he worked on his research to keep himself from spending too much time with her. When his home was finished, he'd have his own sanctuary away from the problem, so Myles told himself every day that it would get easier. So far, he hadn't fooled himself at all.

"Is it… zombies?!" Spike asked in fear, finally catching Myles attention again. He looked around and wondered what they were discussing when they heard a "Psst!" from the house nearby.

In short order, the three of them had been dragged into the house by Pinkie Pie, who revealed that the rest of their friends were present as well, evidently hiding from a mysterious figure outside. He kept an eye on the figure in question, who seemed to be guilty of nothing other than having strange patterns on her coat and pawing at the ground. The girls had continued their discussion without him.

"That's just it," Applejack spoke with a shiver, "She lives in… the Everfree Forest!"

"What?" Myles head snapped round as he turned his attention to her, not even flinching when Spike knocked over several pots and pans and created a loud crash.

"The Everfree Forest just ain't natural!" Applejack continued without acknowledging Myles, "The plants grow!"

"Animals care for themselves!" Fluttershy added.

"And the clouds move…" Rainbow Dash began before the three of them finished with

"All on their own!"

Myles shook his head and tapped his detection crystal, checking the perimeter as the others speculated about this Zecora. His ear twitched in irritation, not at Pinkie Pie's sudden singing, but at what his detection barrier showed. Then he remembered something else.

"The cottage," he said simply as the others turned to him.

"What?"

"One of the times I went into the forest, I was being pursued by timberwolves and I spotted a thatch-roofed cottage built around and into a tree. It was in good shape and there was a light on. Must've been hers…"

"See? A little strange," Twilight said triumphantly, "but she's just like the rest of us."

"Except that was months ago," Myles continued, turning to see the others' expressions of apprehension, "and I never found it again."

"Even her house is enchanted!" Pinkie cried.

"She is not an enchantress!" Twilight yelled angrily. Myles brought up the display of the perimeter for all of them to see. Twilight looked at Myles with an irritated expression, "What?"

"No alerts," he said nervously, "It's detected nothing all day long. How'd she get in without setting the system off?"

"Maybe she walked around?" Twilight suggested.

"How would she know there was something to walk around?" Myles asked with increasing volume and urgency, "Yeah I didn't exactly hide the crystals but if she was staring at her hooves the whole way out of the forest, she'd have been eaten by something. Even if she'd tripped over one I would've been notified…" Myles continued speculating to himself as he headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Twilight demanded.

"Gotta check the perimeter, if she disabled it somehow… Ponyville might already be in danger!" He galloped outside and headed directly for the forest.

When he neared the tree line, he spotted a yellow and red filly running ahead of him and gave chase. He glanced briefly at his crystal as it pinged a warning for the filly crossing the barrier just inside the forest. Frowning, he continued to follow, even if the perimeter was working, he had to keep her from attracting attention from anything living in the woods. If it weren't for the dozens of peaceful animals that made their way in and out of the forest each day, he'd seal it off permanently. Not that it would ensure the town's safety, he thought as he spotted another figure ahead of the one he was chasing, this one had stripes and a cloak. He struggled to remember the name of Applejack's younger sister.

"Apple!" he shouted after her, hoping her name also contained the name of the fruit her family was famous for. Evidently it did, because the filly skidded to a stop and looked round. As he continued galloping forwards, the cloaked figure turned towards them. Its eyes seemed to glow an eerie yellow as they narrowed at the two of them.

"Guardian, you must stray no more!

You alone stand twixt these woods and war!"

Myles merely frowned at this as he skidded to a stop in front of Applejack's sister. He heard shouting behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see the girls were approaching as well.

"You okay?" he asked the filly.

"Ahm fine," she replied. He turned back to the zebra and began to charge at her. Applejack called out to her sister and the sound of hoof-beats let him know the others were right behind him. Suddenly the figure spoke again.

"Beware, beware you ponyfolk,

Those leaves of blue are not a joke!"

Applejack scooped her sister up and placed her on her back before shouting at the figure.

"Y- you keep your creepy mumbo-jumbo to yourself, ya hear!"

"Beware! Beware!" the figured intoned as it faded into the darkness.

The others continued to argue a bit as Myles glanced around. Zecora's words were unusually phrased, but they hadn't seemed to be malicious at all to Myles. He was still worried about the last phrase however, which had seemed familiar to him, though he couldn't figure out why. His ears stood straight in alarm as he heard something. A small sound came from beneath his hooves. He looked down only to be met with the blue petals of flowers he was standing in. He brushed some of them aside, looking for the source of the sound and still uncertain he was hearing correctly.

It sounded like laughter.

"Everything okay, Myles?" Twilight caught his attention and he looked up to find the others had gone, leaving him and Twilight alone in the field. Alone together. Myles eyes' widened at this thought as he looked away from Twilight.

"Ye- yeah…" he muttered, "I'm fine. Just tired that's all."

Twilight looked at him skeptically and he did his best to fake a smile. She shrugged and walked back towards town. Myles looked around and then checked the perimeter again, stretching a hoof through it and taking note of the red light that appeared on the projection. He frowned and stood for a few moments before heading back. For the rest of the night he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd missed two or three very important details about what just happened.

He dreamed of the crystal cave again that night. This time however, the crystals broadcast Zecora's words instead of their usual hum. Myles tried to tune them but whenever he did they increased in volume and more crystals sprung forth from the surface. The crystals filled the room, pressing in and trapping him. Before encasing him completely they harmonized to repeat one last phrase.

"You alone stand twixt these woods and war!"

Feeling a hoof poke him in the side, Myles eyes' snapped open and he rolled off the bed again. As he pulled himself upright he realized something was very wrong. His sheets didn't rustle and he couldn't hear voices, yet someone had woken him. He untangled himself from the covers and threw them at the bed. He spotted Twilight looking at him with concern and mumbling something he couldn't make out.

What? He asked Twilight and she flinched, her ears leaning back and a wince crossing her face as though he had shouted at her. She looked a little grumpy and her mouth moved once more. Myles stood with his mouth agape.

All he heard was silence.

He desperately ground a hoof into his ear, trying to remove an obstruction that didn't seem to exist. He reared up and stomped on the floor, hoping for the reassuring sound of hooves striking wood. His ears drooped and his face fell as he sank back onto his haunches in shock and breathed heavily. He was completely deaf. He began to breathe faster as this realization hit him, panting heavily as he thought of the fact that he could no longer defend the town, tune crystals or hear any of his friends' voices again. He'd never hear Twilight laugh again. This last realization brought tears to his eyes and he desperately wished he could hear himself sniff in sadness at his new life.

His eyes snapped back into focus as he felt Twilight's hooves wrap around his shoulders and pull him into a tight embrace. He blinked the tears away, ashamed of himself for showing such weakness in front of Twilight. Then he nearly broke down again. He'd shouted at her a minute ago and that would be the last thing approaching a conversation they ever had. He strained to feel the volume of his voice and kept his lips tight as he muttered as quietly as he could.

"I'm sorry."

Twilight pulled away from their hug, her mouth moved and she looked apologetically at him. His eyelids drooped as he pointed as his ear and shook his head. She nodded sadly, causing her horn to flop around a bit. Myles spotted it for the first time and pointed at the drooping, spotted protrusion from Twilight's head, managing to stop himself from shouting in surprise. Twilight looked unsettled by the situation as she nodded again. He pulled her back in for a hug and after they parted, they both went downstairs.

Twilight began searching her library frantically. Myles knew she must be looking for a cure, but he didn't know the library as well as she did. He searched a little at first but found he wasn't even in the right section, not to mention he had no idea what had caused this. He idly turned the pages of the book in front of him to distract himself from the fact that he couldn't help Twilight without interrupting her and trying to communicate. Myles head and shoulders sank in sorrow as the oppressive silence seemed to push at him from all sides.

He felt a hoof on his shoulder and looked up to see Rarity. His eyes widened as he took in the massive dreadlocks adorning her coat. She brushed them out of the way and pulled Myles into a hug. He felt her face move next to him and realized she must've spoken, at which point Rarity pulled back as his head sunk lower. She looked at him sadly and went to join the others, who were all evidently discussing the situation, each with their own unique ailment to contend with. He didn't see anything wrong with Fluttershy, but then he supposed he appeared normal as well. He returned his gaze to the book in front of him and sighed.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

Myles ears perked up as he heard a faint but deep voice, the first sound since waking up, and he looked around frantically for its source. The others looked at him for a moment in confusion. When he saw no pony else, he hung his head in sadness again.

"That woman's gotta be stopped!"

He perked up as he heard the voice again. The girls appeared to be in a heated argument but he couldn't hear any of them. Though he kept his ears and eyes alert as he searched for the source of the voice.

"I dunno, seems awfully dangerous."

Myles gaped as he spotted the only mouth that matched up with the sentence he heard.

"Flutteryshy?" He mumbled. At least he thought he had mumbled, though everyone turned as if they had heard him.

"What?" Fluttershy asked in confusion.

"I can-" Myles stopped as everyone in the room flinched, he continued in the quietest voice he could produce, "I can hear Fluttershy." The girls leaned forwards, straining to understand him. Twilight was nearest and her eyes widened as she had evidently understood. She turned and said something to Fluttershy. Who looked back to Myles.

"You can hear me?"

Myles nodded eagerly and grinned, glad he wasn't completely deaf. The other girls seemed to be searching desperately for something. Pinkie Pie lifted Myles off the ground and searched under him, putting him down when she was satisfied the object wasn't there.

"Oops. Sorry." He heard Fluttershy say as she went to help Rainbow Dash, who appeared to be having trouble flying, then she turned to Spike, "Spike? You coming?"

Myles never heard his answer, but figured he wasn't as the dragon didn't follow him out the door. He prodded Fluttershy and she jumped and turned around. He pointed at the others and shrugged.

"Oh, we think Applejack and Applebloom went looking for Zecora's hut, we're going after them."

Myles nodded and followed them into the woods. Partway in, Fluttershy turned and pointed at the bracer around his hoof. The detection system had gone off when they'd entered, but Myles hadn't heard it. He tapped the crystal to acknowledge the alert and silence the crystal, even though he couldn't hear it. His head drooped as he thought of pitching the useless device into the woods and though better of it. Surely someone else would be able to make use of it.

After a long trek through the woods, Myles apologized quietly as he had walked directly into Fluttershy. She excused him and he looked ahead to find the girls arguing again, likely over the supposed location of Zecora's hut. Myles looked past them into the woods and spotted a ravine a short distance away. His eyes widened as he shouted in surprise.

He remembered this place. The memory was vivid as he galloped forwards, following the same route he had taken previously, only with his friends following close behind instead of a pack of hungry timberwolves. He had run straight to the ravine, turning himself parallel to it and then kicked behind him with his back hooves. He remembered the satisfying howl and clatter of a wolf falling into the gorge and shattering at the base. Myles sprinted forwards, following the cliffs edge like he was still being chased. Spotting a fallen tree spanning the gap, he crossed it and remembered the hollow sound of wooden claws colliding with rotten bark. He ran up a nearby boulder and kicked off of its surface, landing on a higher cliff and smirking. Further down the cliff there was an overhang of rock that he eagerly squeezed himself under, stopping for a second to grab a paw shaped piece of wood jammed into the narrowest part of the gap. He ran up the short incline that followed and grinned.

He turned around to see the others panting as they caught up, Twilight appeared furious as she stalked up and her mouth opened wide and shut several times. Evidently she was shouting at him. He merely stood there and looked impatient until she stopped and looked him in the eyes, seeming to be waiting for an answer. He merely grinned and nodded his head towards something over his shoulder. Twilight's irritation changed to surprise as she glanced behind him and saw a thatch-roofed hut built partway into a tree. She said something else and then looked at Fluttershy.

"She says sorry."

Myles just shrugs.

"They want to know how you found it again."

Myles holds out his hoof with the timberwolf paw on it as an answer. The girls finally seem to understand and they all turn towards the hut. The lights are on and the group makes its way to Zecora's window. After spotting the zebra inside, the girls talk amongst themselves a bit until Pinkie falls at Fluttershy's hooves, begging her for something. Myles holds his hooves over his mouth as he stifles his laughter at Fluttershy's version of Pinkie's enchantress song, which sounds like its being performed by a jazz musician.

Eventually the girls burst into Zecora's cottage, Rainbow Dash making a mess of the place. Myles follows them in but fails to understand what's being said until Fluttershy's voice catches his attention.

"You made me sound ridiculous!"

Myles looked shocked, he figured out they were accusing Zecora of their ailments, but that still didn't make sense to him. She'd said "Beware," hadn't she? Suddenly Myles remembered why that phrase sounded familiar.

"And you made him dea-" Fluttershy's deepened voice was cut off as Myles placed a hoof over it and shook his head. The girls looked perplexedly at him as he ducked to the ground and rose up again, spreading his hooves away from himself and slowly letting them spread wider. The others still look confused but then turn to Zecora as she speaks. Myles merely sits back and hopes that Zecora's words communicate things clearly to them as well as rhyming this time. After a bit Fluttershy turned back to him.

"The flower?"

Myles nods vigorously.

The rest of them seem to come to some sort of an agreement and they all return to Ponyville. Myles follows them sadly into town and tries to head towards the treehouse, but the girls pull him towards the local spa. He rolls his eyes and waits outside their room. After a few moments, Fluttershy comes out of the room and her mouth moves. Myles eyes start watering again as he hears silence. She looks worried as she says something else. When he doesn't reply, she returns to their room. Suddenly Rainbow Dash bursts out and drags Myles inside. He pushes back with all his might but can't get a grip on anything.

Myles face turns red as Rainbow flies around behind him and pushes him through the doors. He tries to look away from the tub where all of the girls are bathing, but Rainbow shoves him to the edge of it and then places her hooves on his head, shoving it under the water. He pulls his head out of the water, spitting and sputtering as he comes up.

"-estly Rainbow, you could have waited for someone to get some paper."

"But you guys wouldn't stop whining about how sad he looked."

Myles stood there stunned a moment.

"CAN YA HEAR YET MYLES?!" Pinkie Pie screamed causing everyone to flinch and Myles to fall back from the tub and cover his ears in pain. Beyond the ringing in his ears he picks up laughter from everypony in the room.

"Yeah," he mumbles, his eye's squeezed shut in pain, "Yeah I think I can, thanks."

He sits up and when he looks at the girls he remembers where he is. His face turns crimson.

"Sorry," he excuses himself quickly to an uproar of laughter, secretly glad that he can hear it again.

Just outside, he finds Zecora chuckling to herself.

"Greetings, brave guardian,

Are you glad to hear again?"

He laughs a bit as well, "Yeah, its nice to know there's a cure for Poison Joke."

"My knowledge of your past is scant,

How did you hear about this plant?"

He frowns a bit, "Dad made me go camping with the other colts outside South Flankston. Didn't really enjoy it but I remember a few things. Like the rhyme they taught us for poisonous plants.

Purple and grey hues will make you croak, leaves of blue make a sad excuse for a joke."

He recited and sighed.

"The cure for poison joke has long been known,

Did they lack this knowledge where you were grown?"

Myles frowned, "Probably not, but evidently they thought it'd be a laugh to leave that part out. Instead one of them told me that they knew somepony who'd stumbled into some poison joke and had to stand on their head for the rest of their days because their legs would sprout flowers whenever they touched the ground."

"Beauty on contact with the ground,

Does not such an awful fate sound."

"Oh the flowers didn't sprout out of the ground." Myles laughed bitterly, "Thinking back now, I guess I should've figured out they were lying, but I could never tell when they were pulling my leg."

"Do not fault the cruelty of foals,

They know not the power they hold."

Myles raised an eyebrow at her.

"One who tries to perfectly rhyme will soon find themselves lacking extra time."

He chuckles a bit, "Alright alright, thanks anyways. One thing though, how'd you get past my barrier without setting off the crystals?"

"The noisy stones of which you talk,

Can be fooled by simple chalk."

"Chalk?"

"Rhythm fades in these and other unstable stones,

It's softness absorbs the very life of tones."

"Good to know, thanks," Myles begins to leave but then stops, "You can hear them too?"

"A welcome melody to our ears,

Heard only from relics of the Empire's years."

"You have relics from the Crystal Empire?" Myles asked eagerly.

"Alas, now we do not,

By another they were bought."

Myles head hangs in disappointment, "Figures…," he turns to leave again.

"Remember what we said before," Myles looks around curiously when she hesitates. The spa owner asks Zecora for the recipe for the bath that cured the poison joke, but she spares a meaningful glance for Myles before returning to the inner room of the spa. Myles thinks a bit and then something clicks into place.

"You alone stand twixt the woods and war?" he mumbles to himself. He frowns as he leaves the spa and heads for the edge of the forest. "Was really hoping for that part to have been another joke."

**Okay, so there's that done. Not sure how to feel about it still. On the one hand having to write Zecora's rhymes led me to a few new ideas, some of which I liked, on the other hand I then punished myself by giving Myles multiple reasons to talk to Zecora at the end of the episode.**

**I think it's safe to say she won't be having any extra dialogue anytime soon. **

**I'm still not entirely satisfied with Zecora's way around Myles defenses, and I think it'll turn out to have been more complex than just covering the crystals with chalk, but the idea of chalk as a sound dampener might still be useful. On writing this though, I sort've panicked when I realized that not only had I not thought of the solution by the time I got to that part, but that because Zecora was saying it, it had to rhyme. **

**I get the feeling I'm not going to be able to write down all of season one on the fly as I have been. Twenty three episodes seems like a lot less when you're just watching it than when you're writing it down with major alterations.**

**Also, I promise I didn't have Myles go deaf just to avoid typing dialogue, but after his hearing became a plot point I decided that taking it away would be the likely thing for the poison joke to do. It wouldn't matter much if it took his magic like Twilight, since he doesn't use it exclusively and probably had a bunch of crystals prepped for such a situation. Also I would've felt awful about reusing something one of the others had already. The real clincher was the idea that Flutterguy's voice was deep enough for him to hear anyways, which was just funny to think of, if not easy to make fun in the story.**

**I'd just like to point out that Spike and Pinkie Pie mention zombies in this episode and Twilight promptly calls them out for believing it. Thought of from an in universe perspective and not as a children's cartoon, this makes no sense at all. Which I'm guessing is probably why the concept is never mentioned again. The way that Spike and Pinkie react indicates there's fiction out there in their world that portrays such things. This is brought up in an episode with an individual from a far-off land. If I remember correctly, zombies were originally ordinary people that Voodoo practitioners deprived of air until they lost enough brain cells to be obedient. Twilight eventually buys into the fear of Zecora from the others, going as far as believing she has actually eaten Applebloom. As a scholar who has read about the far-away lands Zecora hails from, shouldn't she have read about this before? So perhaps she meant there are no zombies as our world portrays them, the rotting, flesh-craving husk variety. But even then that's a stretch, since you have beings like Discord running around and an accessible opening to TARTARUS and you're telling me NO ONE has ever managed to create an undead monster? Actually, given the proximity of the above, I'm surprised there aren't herds of zombie ponies stalking the lands outside of Equestria.**

**Maybe they're saving that for season 6.**

**Oh hey, I mentioned Myles' family… and I really wish I could say I planned that, but I didn't. Just wanted to tie that into real life stuff I learned in Boy Scouts, "Leaves of three, let it be."**

**Everyone insisted that the next line was "Leaves of four, eat some more," but no one ever said that part with a straight face, so I figured they were joking about that bit.**

**And I realized that Myles not knowing about Poison Joke is a bit of a stretch, but him forgetting about it might not be as much, even though he had a rhyme to help him remember. In my defense, there have been three seasons hence with many forays into the Everfree Forest and no one has ever stumbled into it again. My guess is there was that one patch and somepony set fire to it after this episode. Can't decide if it was Rainbow Dash or Rarity. Maybe both. You can never be too sure.**

**Oh look, I also dropped a reference to the Crystal Empire in there, clumsy me. Ah well, it seems to fit. Was gonna continue not mentioning it, but Twilight wasn't in the room and I wanted to remind myself of something I'm looking forwards to. How am I not even halfway into season 1?**

**Sorry for the rambling outro. The chapter you just read probably isn't the same one I typed right before this long author's note, I'm not entirely satisfied with it at present.**

**Later Note: I left the chapter mostly as I first typed it. Its not so bad and the chalk definitely isn't the first crystal thing I've put off until later to explain. Rest assured there will be more to it.**

**Besides, I'll never get through season one if I keep delaying and I've got my work cut out for me in the next chapter. Of course, by the time you read this, I'll have finished it, so go ahead and check it out.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, so I'm pretty nervous about this one because I've no idea how I'm gonna handle it. But I gotta keep going. Myles would keep going and so will I. Hopefully this chapter is up to par. If it's not, hang in there, I've got better stuff coming. I hope.**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

Swarm of the Century or Why Ignore Pinkie Pie?

"You checked the perimeter?" Twilight asked urgently. Myles simply rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Twilight," he said in frustration, "Zecora's workaround was temporary and the defenses are intact. Everything will be fine. Anything I can do to help here?" He asked, glancing around at the mess of a library.

"Yes," Spike said eagerly. Twilight frowned.

"Myles has his own job to attend to, Spike, we can't both-" Twilight stopped as Myles wrapped a hoof around her shoulder and led her to the door.

"Listen, Twilight," he opened the front door and guided her outside, "Ponyville is safe for now. Maybe you should check on the others and their preparations for the Princess' visit."

"Bu-"

"Lots to do, see you later!" He shut the door as politely as he could while still keeping Twilight outside. Peeking out the window, he waited until he saw her walk away to turn around.

"Right," he levitated a few books onto a shelf, "Let's get this place cleaned up."

"But those don't go there!" Spike cried in alarm.

"Probably not, no," Myles smirked, "but Celestia's not going to be checking out any books and Twilight will be too worried about her to notice until after she's left, so just get the books onto the shelves."

"But I'm Twilight's most trusted assistant! If I start putting things back in the wrong place-"

"You'll have plenty of time to reorganize them before Celestia leaves and if she finds some out of place, you can tell her I was rooting through them and put them back wrong. Like I have the past several times." He grinned.

"That was you!?" Spike shouted indignantly, "I had to put all those back!"

"Yeah, sorry Spike," he only looked slightly apologetic, "but it was worth it to see Twilight get flustered over something she couldn't explain."

"Oh sure, it was a barrel of laughs," Spike said sarcastically as he and Myles began to put the various piles of books onto the shelves.

Myles awoke to a chittering and squeaking sound. It made him wince as it assaulted his ears. He finally opened his eyes to see what was causing the noise.

He shut his eyes tight.

"Myles! Wake up!" He sat up as he heard Twilight shout, he blinked and rubbed his eyes, "Do you have any idea what these things are?" Twilight asked desperately.

He glanced around at the multitude of winged spherical creatures zooming about the library and shook his head.

"Nope. I was actually hoping that they weren't real," he sighed and got out of bed, "but of course they're real. Nothing's ever easy. Any idea where they came from?"

"Well I brought one home, Fluttershy had a few extra and the one was sooo cute."

Myles raised an eyebrow as he glanced about at the small creatures undoing all of his and Spike's work from the previous day.

"You had one?" He asked skeptically.

"Yeah," Spike confirmed, "I fed the little guy during the night, I dunno where these other ones came from."

"So Fluttershy brought one of these to you?" Myles asked as he shoo-ed one away from his music crystal. He bumped it and the creatures seemed to gather around it for a moment until he waved them away.

"Yes, she brought them into Sugarcube Corner and I took one home. She took the other two since Pinkie didn't want one. She'd said she found them at the edge of the Everfree Forest."

"Pinkie didn't want one?" Myles asked in shock, then did a double-take as he caught up, "The Everfree forest?!"

"Yes! Now help me get rid of them!" Twilight cried as she tried to gather some up, but as she looked around the door had shut. Myles was already gone.

They were tiny, that was why, Myles thought. He had deliberately tuned the detection field so that it let small creatures through without alerting him. Various docile or harmless creatures went in and out of the forest all the time, all of them relatively small, if he hadn't made the barrier exclude them he would never get any sleep because he'd be getting up at all hours to go check on a squirrel or beaver or something equally non-threatening. They could still set off the barrier if they stood in it for a few moments, but more often than not, they just dashed through it like it was nothing. These things that Fluttershy had brought back probably didn't stand still for that long.

He sighed in relief as he arrived at the tree line. Nothing was moving in the forest.

"Everything's going fine, Mr. Shadsore."

"Shardsole," Myles corrected automatically as he turned to see a pony in a hard hat walking away from the half-built tower sitting where his home had been.

"One question though," the pony raised a hoof to tilt his hat away from his eyes, "you sure you want the basement dug deeper? We could save time and bits by skipping the foundation and building it on the rocks as they are."

"That's how my last house was built and yes, I need the basement."

"Alright alright," the other pony seemed irritated, "Like I said, we'll follow your designs as best as we can, but it doesn't make a lick of sense to me."

"That's fine," Myles said distractedly, "Listen, I've got official business to attend to, we can talk later."

"Yeah yeah," the other pony rolled his eyes and made his way to the construction site.

Myles edged towards the perimeter and brought up the projection of it. He ran the timer back to yesterday morning. Nothing the whole time. He frowned, they were too small to detect, but if the number he'd seen in Twilight's house had come through, they'd have set off the alarm.

So any new creatures had to have come from the original one Fluttershy brought back. Myles eyelid twitched as this sunk in. If they multiplied that fast, there'd be tens of thousands of them by nightfall. As he turned around, he spotted the girls rolling a large ball comprised of tiny wings and spheres towards him.

He galloped towards them and ran alongside Twilight. "Twilight, there isn't any more of them coming from the forest, but they can multiply faster than anything I've ever seen!"

Twilight frowned at him, "We know. Thanks for your help, by the way."

"I had to make sure there weren't more coming in!" Myles protested.

"You should have helped me deal with the ones we had!"

"They look like insects! I thought there was a hive somewhere that the first one had called them from, I was going to stop the problem from getting bigger! But it's worse than that, they're not hive-minded-"

"They just eat, we know!" Twilight shouted at him. He recoiled a bit but kept galloping along with her. Suddenly he noticed something pink on his other side.

"Pinkie! There you are! I need to talk to you!"

"No time," Pinkie said as she galloped alongside them, she looked at Twilight, "I need you to help me find some maracas!"

"Maracas? Pinkie we've got much bigger problems than missing maracas!"

Pinkie gasped, "You're right, getting a tuba has to be our priority! Follow me!"

Twilight kept going and Myles glanced at her curiously. "Aren't we going with her?"

"NO! It's just Pinkie being Pinkie! We have to get this resolved before the Princess arrives!"

Pinkie herself appeared again, "I said 'follow me!'"

Rainbow flew up alongside them, "Pinkie Pie, you are so random."

"And you are all so stubborn!" Pinkie cried as she peeled off from the group. Myles glanced at Twilight, who frowned at him. "What?" she snapped.

"She might know what she's doing," Myles said.

"She's Pinkie Pie! She does whatever she feels like even if it isn't helping!"

Myles sighs and runs after Pinkie Pie. Twilight shouted after him but he ignored her. He finally caught up to Pinkie Pie, galloping alongside her.

"What else do you need?"

Pinkie looked shocked for a moment, then she grinned. "Your Sharlsow-

"Shardsole."

"Shersloo sense must've told you I had the right idea! I'm after some cymbals but I'm going to need that tuba and a snare drum soon as well."

"Right, I'll get the tuba and drum and get back to you."

"Thanks Myles!" Pinkie shouted as he galloped off.

He had expected a tuba to be hard to find, but he found one as he checked the local music shop almost instantly, it had just finished being cleaned and repaired. He managed to convince the clerk that it was an emergency, his case helped somewhat when one of the creatures came in and began eating a violin. He inquired after a snare drum, but the shop was clean out.

He thought frantically, watching as the creatures tore apart houses. He wasn't sure what had happened, but apparently they weren't too picky about their food anymore. He skidded to a halt and turned around as he remembered something. He knew of an elderly stallion a few doors down from him that used to be a drummer for the military, hopefully he could be convinced to part with his drum.

He skidded to a stop in front of Pinkie's house, almost dropping the drum but leaning forwards on to his front hooves to stop it from tipping from his back. Before he could knock, the door burst open with Pinkie covered in various musical instruments standing on the doorstep. He looked back to gently lower the instruments to the ground, but found they were gone. When he looked back, Pinkie was already wearing them. He blinked in confusion, the tuba and snare drum were strapped onto her underneath the banjo and harmonica mount. He shook his head and decided never to ask.

"So they respond to music? What are they?"

"Parasprites! And yes, you can lead them along with a full band ensemble, do you think the force field can hold them back?"

"I'll need to adjust it, but it doesn't go all the way around…" He smiled suddenly, "I know how we can get rid of them for good. You're sure you can get all of them to follow?"

"Yeah!"

"Good, I'll be right back."

He dashed off to the cart full of crystals and grabbed a few, galloping back towards the center of town and meeting up with Pinkie Pie, who had started to play and was leading a column of bouncing parasprites through the town square. He walked alongside her, focusing his magic on the crystals in front of him and letting them soak up the music, ending the enchantment when Pinkie began to repeat the melody.

They spotted Princess Celestia at the edge of the forest. Pinkie kept playing, but Myles ran over to her in time to hear her speaking to Twilight and the others.

"…some sort of infestation over in Fillydelphia, I'm so sorry-"

"Your highness!" Myles bowed as he thought quickly, "Thank you for your continued support of my research, I'm afraid I have business to attend to, but I'd like to offer you this token of my gratitude," he pressed one of the crystals into her hoof, "something to keep you entertained during your journey and I'm so sorry you have to leave already. Talk to you more soon byeeeeeeee!" He trailed off as he galloped once more after Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie shot him a curious look as he caught up, "This way, cmon!"

She continued to play following him into the Everfree forest. Eyes shone from between the dark trees and glanced at the odd and noisy procession, but nothing pursued them save for the parasprites. Myles led Pinkie Pie to a familiar clearing and to the edge of the water.

The surface of the swamp was already churning as Pinkie continued playing, despite looking increasingly worried. The parasprites gathered around the edge of the water as she continued playing. Myles set down a crystal and tapped it, leaving it to continue playing Pinkie's song as he grabbed Pinkie and ran full tilt away from the swamp. They passed the last few parasprites in their little parade and were out of sight of the clearing when they heard the first rumble of the creature behind them.

"What was that?"

"Something I really hope to leave alone one day!"

Suddenly the music stopped and all that could be heard was frantic chittering and loud roars. Myles shuddered as he and Pinkie slowed down. They came to a stop at the edge of the forest, both of them panting to catch their breath. Myles was surprised to see Pinkie Pie tired, but then she'd escaped with a one-pony band on her back as well. They both slumped to the ground as the others rushed up to them.

"You knew about those all along?" Twilight asked Pinkie.

"Yeah, why do you think I was trying to get all this stuff?"

"And you figured it out," Twilight looked away shamefully after glancing at Myles, "I'm sorry about what I said to you."

"It's cool," He panted, "Did Celestia take the crystal with her?"

"Hey! Where is the Princess anyways?"

"She had to go," Rainbow smiled, "some sort of infestation in Fillydelphia."

"They have parasprites too? Oh well, have tuba, will travel!" Pinkie got to her feet but Twilight stopped her.

"I think she can handle it, besides, I'm pretty sure Myles already helped her out. She did take the crystal, by the way. Would I be right in assuming that Pinkie's song is stored on it?" Myles nodded. "Nice. Thanks for your help, both of you, and I'm sorry I doubted either of you."

They heard a loud roar from deep within the forest. Myles got to his feet and began walking away from the trees. When he had enough distance, he activated the barrier around the woods and began walking back to the library. The girls looked at the woods apprehensively as they followed. "What did you do with them?" Twilight asked nervously.

"I made them something else's problem," Myles said flatly, before turning with a grin, "We won't be seeing them again."

The others sighed in relief. Twilight and Pinkie started up a conversation about what had happened but Myles continued walking to the library. He had long ago stopped hearing the chittering noises, but the occasional roar still echoed through the woods. He almost felt bad for the little things. He glanced around town at the half-eaten buildings and debris and shook his head.

Almost.

**Okay, so a bit of a short chapter, sorry about that. I mean, I go up to 4000 words when I'm just winging it but I keep looking down at my word count and thinking "That's all?" while I'm writing this. But now it's done, and while it's not the best chapter, I don't have to worry about it anymore. **

**And boy was I. I mean, since they originate from the Everfree forest, the parasprites fall under Myles' jurisdiction, but I had no idea what to have him do about them.** **No one, not even Twilight can cope with them and the episode hinges on everyone ignoring Pinkie Pie.**

**I think I might have liked this episode when I saw it originally, but on repeat watchings it never sat well with me. It sort of feels like its trying to imitate the episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends about the scribbles, but that episode was executed so much better. Not to mention in order for this to work everyone has to IGNORE PINKIE PIE. I get that it's still season 1 and they aren't the best of friends yet, but they let her try making the dragon laugh earlier and they know she's not as foolish as she appears already. The worst part is, when she first sees them, Pinkie Pie calls them Parasprites, which Twilight repeats and then promptly forgets. Pinkie Pie had information, however little, about the things causing all the problems this episode and NO ONE bothers to ask her about them. Twilight gets handed the idiot ball for this episode and its irritating to watch. Even if the instrument gathering was unrelated the topic still should have come up on the few occasions when Pinkie crossed their paths while they were dealing with the infestation.**

**Oh and let's not forget that, though Pinkie Pie leads them pied piper-style into the forest, there's nothing stopping them from coming back in the original episode. So I took out some of my frustration with these inconsistencies by feeding them to the swamp monster. Hey look! I filled in a plot hole! And it wasn't even mine!**

**One thing I did like about preparing to write this chapter was coming to the realization that this is the first broken karma episode. If you watch the show, which I assume you do if you're reading this, you might notice it has laser-guided karma. Normally, everything comes back around to get someone right up until the point where they apologize and learn their lesson. I noticed a particular episode in season 2, that gets away with a whole bunch of unresolved issues and it's become my favorite episode of that season since. A few others sort of do this, I think, but until I rewatched this episode I didn't know it was the first.**

**At the end of the episode, Ponyville is damaged, yes, but that's all fixable. I think it's supposed to be the karmic retribution for their actions but its far outweighed by the facts that they brought the plague to town, made it worse and shunned the only pony who knew how to deal with it until the end. And then even that gets outweighed by the fact that the Princess tells them that she has to leave to deal with an infestation. And they just let her go.**

**And then they laugh when they tell Pinkie Pie about it. AND THEN they keep Pinkie Pie from helping. Seriously Twilight, did you just condemn Fillydelphia to suffer through a famine you could have EASILY PREVENTED!?**

**It's not as though the Princess won't ever realize what they did either. She saw the parasprites in Ponyville and the fact that they were being handled. She's going to recognize them as soon as she gets to Fillydelphia and she's going to realize that there was no parade and that Twilight and the others not only lied to her but withheld information that could've saved LIVES. Yet it's never brought up or resolved at all. "Oh Twilight, you prankster you, sending me to clean up a nigh-unstoppable plague with no help whatsoever, I'll be sure and never say a word about this." Yeah I can see Celestia saying that.**

**So clearly, despite her advanced targeting system, Karma misses a few episodes. I think the writers of MLP must sneak up and unplug the targeting computer whenever they feel like messing with her or just realize they have too many loose ends to tie off in one episode. I'll point out any other karma misses as I get to them, especially the episode in season two that is hilarious to me because it misses so badly I noticed before I tried to rewrite it into my fanfic.**

**Y'know what, I can't wait until then. Go rewatch "Sweet and Elite" and you'll see what I mean.**

**Sorry this one turned out shorter, I just wanted to get through it and didn't feel like writing Myles into helping all their fruitless efforts when they should've asked Pinkie Pie from the beginning.**

**Also worth noting is that this is the second episode in a row that has something from the Everfree forest which we will NEVER SEE AGAIN despite it's devastating effects on the cast/town.**

**Hope you aren't too mad at me for how this turned out. But just in case you are, I'm also uploading the next chapter at the same time as this one. That's right, BONUS!**

**Mostly because I don't want to end an update on an episode so potentially disappointing. **

**Only now, of course, do I realize that Myles has potentially even LESS to do with the next chapter. Faaaaaaaaaantastic.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Here goes. People love this episode. Even I love this episode. The song is the first bit of MLP I ever heard. Strange thing is, it feels a little incomplete without explosions and screaming in the background. See I first heard it played over a game of Team Fortress 2 on an MLP fan server. I really hope that server is still going. I don't have a computer that can run TF2 at the moment, but I hope to go back and hear Winter Wrap Up as I did the first time again.**

**Oh yeah, and now I have to write out this episode. Y'know, with Myles, the unicorn with no organization skill who can't possibly help in this episode. And as usual I'll be watching and re-watching the episode while I type. Hope this doesn't get ugly.**

**I don't own My Little Pony.**

Winter Wrap-Up or Unsubtle Bonding

Myles squinted as the lights flipped on.

"Can't these use magic to change the seasons like they do in canterlot?" He heard Spike ask.

"Ponyville was founded by earth ponies so every year they wrap up winter without magic, it's tradition. Myles get up it's Winter Wrap-Up day!"

He sat up and stared at her. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Its time to get up!"

Myles groaned and laid back, covering his head with a pillow as Twilight rushed about.

"Oh, I suppose it's a little early." He heard Twilight say from the door downstairs. He chuckled a bit and rolled over, falling asleep again.

Myles yawned and stretched as he got out of bed later on. He glanced around to see an empty library, evidently Twilight and Spike had gone to help wrap up winter. He chuckled a bit as he thought of the baby dragon, who he assumed didn't go along willingly.

Myles got out the crystal he'd been working on a few weeks ago. With the focal point of another crystal he'd managed to blend it into one larger crystal over several attempts. This time he gathered a couple more crystals and set them nearby before pointing the melding crystal at the group of them and activating it. He slowly pushed the other two crystals to the main mass and forced some magical power to transfer between them. He grinned as they pressed firmly against the main crystal and stuck. The lines were still clearly visible, showing where the crystals were joined, but there was no gap between them. The problem was he now had an oddly shaped crystal with four structures joined at the base.

He grabbed a few more crystals and enchanted them to direct energy like the other one, now he had four crystals focusing energy on the misshapen crystal. He made sure to anchor them to his work table before trying again. This time he pressed the crystal structures together with his hooves, straining and sweating as they slowly shifted and protested until they joined as four parallel structures.

He heard the door open and before he could turn around he smelled something foul. He glanced downstairs to see a grumpy and soaked Twilight enter, followed closely by Spike, who was carrying several cans of Tomato paste. He put a closepin over his nose and decided not to bother them.

He looked at the compound crystal in front of him and frowned. The vibrations on the surface had troubled him as he pressed them together. The friction heated his hooves a bit and he was concerned about a rupture.

He went out to see Rarity obsessing over a bird's nest. He couldn't get her attention despite several attempts to ask for a small bit of fabric. After a while, he shrugged and decided to pay her back later. He retrieved some fabric from the clothing shop and formed a continuous loop of some of it.

When he got back to the library, Twilight and Spike had left again. He cut two holes in the one side of the fabric loop and sealed up the seams magically. He moved the compound crystal and then levitated two relatively flat and clear crystals into place on the fabric, placing the whole assembly in the middle of the fusion crystals. He activated them in short bursts and soon found the crystals securely bonded with the fabric, having grown a little to surround the fibers and keep them in place.

He gingerly put the loop over his head and pushed them in front of his eyes. He could see fairly clearly and his eyes were protected. Getting a sudden idea, he tapped his recording crystal.

"Try projecting images inside of crystals, so they can be viewed close up, like lenses."

He set the compound crystal back into the makeshift crystal array on the table. After making sure his newly crafted goggles sat snugly over his eyes, he focused on the array and channeled magic into each crystal, tuning some to force energy through the gaps in the crystals and a few others to exert physical pressure on the outside. He braced himself against the floor and triggered the crystal array. Then he focused his magic on the compound crystal in the center.

The crystal gave a bassy thrum as energy traveled between the gaps left over and the table shook. Sweat beaded on his forehead and streamed over his goggle lenses as he pressed more magic into the crystal. His ears twitched back and forth as he listened to the sound emitted by the crystal and adjusted the amount of magic flow to make sure not to overload it. He stopped suddenly when he saw the crystal pulse with light.

The light increased and decreased slowly and he heard the pitch of the array increase. He realized he'd left the array running when he'd stopped and was about to shut it down when the entire collection squealed in protest and exploded.

Myles groaned and picked himself up off the floor. He had seen a shard or two bounce off of his goggles and was secretly grateful he'd thought of them beforehand. He wiped his face and glanced down at his hoof, surprised to see a smear of blood. Myles sighed and made his way to the bathroom, where he cleaned the cuts on his face and bandaged one of them up. He tapped his memo crystal, "Safety note: full blast shielding needed for crystal bonding process, if it ever- huh?"

He had stopped mid-sentence, having walked back into the main room while talking, he spotted his work area. He tapped his note crystal to shut it off as he walked forwards to examine the area. The surrounding area and the surface of the table was covered in crystal shards and fresh blast marks. Almost everything was as he expected.

But in the center, where the compound crystal had been, was a solid light blue crystal that slowly pulsed with light. The light faded and a steady thrum swelled and reduced to silence as the crystal returned to normal. As normal as any crystal was to Myles, save for the fact that it was the largest crystal he'd ever seen, about the size of a chicken. It was all one color and running a magical current through it revealed there were little to no impurities whatsoever.

He eagerly tapped his note crystal again, "Crystal bonding process was a success. An array of no less than eight smaller crystals, four used for magic flow and four used for physical pressure is required, but I've successfully bonded four crystals into one larger whole. Furthermore, the impurities have all but been wiped out and the consistency of matter, color and texture have all formed into one uniform mass of blue crystal. The crystal array overloaded in the process, requiring too much energy for the bonding to work, but with this larger crystal that may not matter. It may be possible to channel enough energy through this crystal to control magical flow and exert pressure at the same time. Hmmm, I'd need a solid surface with sound dampening properties to keep the energy from overflowing, like…. An anvil." A wide smile crossed his face as he thought on this and tapped his note crystal twice. "Adjustments will have to be made to the testing chamber in my new basement. Once I have an ample supply of these larger, purified crystals I can begin experimenting with the possible capabilities leant to each crystal due to their increased mass and purity." He tapped his crystal again and laughed. Gladly sweeping up the shards scattered about the room, he collected them in a bag off to the side before flopping down gratefully on the guest bed.

He dreamt of the crystal cave again. Something had changed, however. He found one of the larger crystals tuned into harmony with the smaller ones he had adjusted on a prior visit. He considered calling Luna again, but decided not to on the basis that she likely would've contacted him if she had more information or was withholding all information because she wanted to keep him calm, as she had said last time. He considered tuning others as well, even the possibility of creating an array as he had done in real life earlier, but the world blurred as he heard another voice.

"Myles!" Twilight shouted as she shook him awake.

"Okay wow! I'm awake! I'm awake!" He groaned as he sat up and rubbed his ears, fighting the familiar spinning sensation brought on by a loud sound.

"Sorry," Twilight said softly, "I rushed home to talk to you and you were talking in your sleep."

He looked up and saw her wearing a multi-colored vest. "Got to wrap up winter after all, huh?"

She glanced at the vest, "Oh, yes," she smiled brightly, "the Mayor declared me all-team organizer after I got the teams to work well enough together to wrap up winter on time. But never mind that now, are you okay?" She finished with increasing concern in her voice.

Myles rubbed his head, "Ummmm, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

She indicated the blast-marks on the table and then poked him in the cheek, tapping the bandage on his face. He briefly wondered if she could see his cheeks redden at the contact, but most of it was covered by the bandage and she'd probably think he was just embarrassed about his experiment.

"Oh right," he laughed nervously, "Yeah I managed to get those crystals to bond earlier."

"I can see that," Twilight nodded at the large crystal on the table, "I meant what happened to the room and your face!"

Myles coughed nervously, "The process needs some work… I kinda detonated eight other crystals on accident."

"Eight!?" Twilight cried in shock.

"Look, I'm sorry about the mess, I cleaned it up as best as I could, I swear I won't try again in your house, besides, mine is almost fini-" He stopped as she flung her hooves around his neck and hugged him, his cheeks reddened again, but Twilight didn't seem to notice as she pulled out of the hug and smashed a hoof into the side of his face that wasn't bandaged.

"OW! My cheek meat! What the hay, Twilight?" Myles rubbed his other cheek as he looked up at her angry expression.

"You could've gotten seriously hurt. Don't you ever think about your own safety?"

"Yeah," he said defensively, holding up his new goggles, "I made these. Look, I know what I'm doing here Twilight, you don't have to worry."

"Do you? You spend all your time with your ears pressed up against potentially lethal unstable materials and every time one of them goes off you act like it's nothing!"

"They're tiny shards Twilight, and yes its dangerous but I take precautions alright? I already said I wouldn't do it in your house anymore, what more do you want?"

"I want to know I'm not going to find you dead in your basement one day!" She shouted angrily. Myles gaped at her as her eyes began to water. "It's … I – You're my friend, Myles, and when I saw the new cuts on you and the bloody bandage I thought… I remembered when… when I…" she trailed off and Myles pulled her into a hug.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Twilight," he said quietly as he pulled away, "That… the thing with my house was almost a month ago. I didn't realize it still bothered you."

She sniffed, "You didn't see yourself that day, Myles," she shivered a bit as though chilled by what she was remembering, "You saw yourself after the doctor had cleaned you up. When I found you, there was so much blood… and you were cut all over… I thought you were gone."

He smiled and patted her shoulder, "I blew up way more crystals when we fought Nightmare Moon, they're hardly going to be the end of me. I know what I'm doing, Twilight, and I do take precautions, but accidents happen anyways, sometimes. I'm sorry I scared you."

She smiled a bit, "It's fine, I need to work past it, but I just want you to be okay."

"I'm fine Twilight," he smirked, "besides in my line of work I'm much more likely to be eaten whole by something." He laughed openly at her reaction.

"Yeah," Twilight regained her composure, "That's not helping. Nor is it funny."

"It was a little," he smirked again, "So winter's wrapped up, huh?" He quickly changed the subject as he saw her grow more irritated. She sighed, "Yes, it took a lot of work and coordination, but we managed…"

Myles grinned as he listened to her story, happy to be away from the topic of his health, but also encouraged by their conversation. Sure she had called him her friend, but it was nice to know she cared. Myles frowned a bit as he thought this, as it may be the best he could ever hope for.

**Woo! Crystal progress and small bits of character development. Yeah it's short again, and while watching the subsequent episodes, that may happen again a couple of times. But it beats forcing Myles into plots he doesn't have much to do with.**

**Don't worry, there's stuff coming up that Myles will be more involved with soon, but I gotta get through these first.**

**I also just realized I forgot to put in what Myles was saying in his sleep. That's okay, its actually better that you don't know yet, since I had already crossed the line from foreshadowing to "ah ha, hes gonna do this" earlier in the chapter. If you didn't spot it, good, otherwise lets keep this between ourselves.**

**Yes there are definitely things Myles could have helped with by not using magic, but considering he would've been sleep deprived and still on call for watching the forest during the previous winter wrap up, he probably had resigned himself to not helping beforehand. I also could've had him follow Twilight around all episode and try and comfort her, but that would mean typing out the whole episode almost as-is with a few comments thrown in here and there. Tedious for me and probably not at all entertaining to you.**

**Oh yeah, and check out the next chapter too. **

**That's right! C-C-COMBO! Didn't feel like upsetting the pattern with an odd-numbered update, so I extended it to a DOUBLE BONUS! Four chapters in a DAY?!**

**That's so awesome that it might never happen again!**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	12. Chapter 12

**B-b-bonus! Here we go! And to top it off, watch as it has almost nothing to do with the episode during which it takes place! Seriously, I can think of a way to put Myles into this plot, but it would last about two seconds and add pretty much nothing to the episode.**

**As usual, I don't own My Little Pony.**

Call of the Cutie or Crystal Forge

"Wow," Applejack whistled appreciatively, "I thought ya were havin' 'em build you a new house, not a castle!"

Myles chuckled as he led the others over to his recently finished home, which resembled a castle turret from the outside and stood over twice as tall as his original home.

"Considering what happened to the last one," Rarity spoke up, "I don't blame him for the new aesthetic. I'm sure it's built for practicality, no matter how amazing it looks!" Rarity's eyes sparkled as she ran a lap around the base of the tower.

"Glad you approve, Rarity," he grinned, "You're right though, it's built like a castle turret for stability, not to look nice. That's just a surprise bonus. Hopefully it'll take a lot more to knock this one down. C'mon inside." He opened the door and led the others inside, where they looked around with awkward expressions on their faces.

"Ummmm… No offense Myles," Rarity began, "But this looks just like the kitchen and living room from your old house but with even less furniture…"

"What's wrong with that? I liked my kitchen and my living room can actually be a living room this time since I moved my bedroom to the second floor. But that's just the boring stuff, c'mon!" He ran up a staircase built into the rounded walls that spiraled upwards as the building curved. They followed him to the third floor, which was a blank stone room with benches built into the walls and a window running the entire circumference.

"It's certainly… roomy." Twilight said nervously.

"Can't have stuff getting in the way up here, this is the armory and observation floor." He pushed a stone panel in the wall aside and mashed a hoof into the button it had hidden. The girls gasped as the metal shutters covering the windows propped themselves open and allowed them to see outside. "I can shut off any section I want, so I'm protected from attacks on other sides when I shoot outside."

"Shoot with what?"

Myles grinned and lifted the seat of one of the benches curved into the walls, revealing a compartment full of crystals. "I had the next shipment moved up here, I'll keep some of them enchanted and the rest blank so I'm ready for anything. And…" he tugged on a rope hanging in the center of the room, revealing a staircase upwards, "I have access to the roof from here, in case I need to get something flying above."

"You can see half the forest from here!" Pinkie cried excitedly.

"That's the idea, between this and the extra detection crystals I'll be setting up, I'll have advance notice of anything that comes within a couple miles of Ponyville."

"That's good to know," Fluttershy muttered quietly.

"That's it?" Rainbow Dash asked skeptically, "If you had needed eyes in the sky, you could've just asked me."

"You won't be here all the time, Rainbow, and I wouldn't want to wake you at three am for a false alarm. Besides, it's also a stable position to cast magic from. It's also not the only addition, c'mon."

Myles eagerly led the others back downstairs, this time he pulled on a lever on the wall which opened a panel in the floor that revealed more stairs spiraling down. He flipped a switch and the basement lit up to show a straw covered floor, some vents near the ceiling, workbenches lining the walls and in the middle a large anvil covered in chalk and set into a sandstone base. There was a large bright orange crystal resting on the anvil, almost as large as the anvil itself and bigger than Applejack's head, hat and all.

"Woah!" Rainbow's jaw dropped, "What is this place and where did THAT come from?" she pointed a hoof at the massive crystal.

"That," Myles grinned widely, "is what I've been working on for the past week and a half and also the key piece of this room. Or it will be once it's set into place." He indicated a recess in the ceiling with a few metal bands attached that wrapped in a circle, just a little bit bigger than the crystal. Rainbow Dashed forwards and tried to lift the crystal, grunting and straining. Myles just laughed.

"Relax, Dash," he pulled her away from the crystal, "I appreciate you trying to help, but it wouldn't be safe for you to be touching the crystal while it was set. You'd get friction burns while it bonded with the metal. But I'm eager to get it in place as well. So, could everyone please go upstairs a moment. Twilight, Rarity, could I get some help?"

The others obligingly retreated and he gestured to Twilight and Rarity to follow him as he walked to a spot a small distance away from the anvil and activated another hidden switch. A thick steel panel angled itself upwards from the floor. He brought them over to crouch behind it.

"See Twilight, I do take precautions, hence the blast shield," he nodded to the steel plate.

"What did you need help with?" Twilight asked, ignoring his latest jab at her concerns.

"I need you two to lift the crystal into place while I bond it with the mount and secure it."

Twilight and Rarity shared a nervous look.

"Okay, if you're sure it's safe."

"Well you will be if you stay behind the blast shield," he pulled his goggles down over his eyes.

"Shouldn't you be back here too?" Twilight said critically.

"I'll be fine."

"Myles…" Twilight looked irritated.

"Alright alright, if you insist."

He took cover behind the shield along with them. Twilght and Rarity's horns glowed and the massive crystal wobbled a bit before gently drifting upwards. It turned slowly to line up with the mount and they slid it carefully into place. Myles' horn lit up as he channeled magic into the crystal and listened to the hum it emitted. This hum was a deep bass compared to the previous crystals and the girls looked nervous, but after a moment the metal bands glowed orange and the crystal grew over them. Myles relaxed and told the others they could let go. He held his breath, but as the girls released their magic the crystal stayed put. He ushered Twilight and Rarity out from behind the shield and pressed the button again to lower it. Then he called upstairs, "You can come back down now."

The rest of the girls rejoined them, exclaiming in awe as they saw the crystal in its proper place. Pinkie Pie looked confused. "What is it?"

"This," Myles couldn't resist grinning widely as he swept a hoof across the room, "Is the Crystal Forge. Using the directed energy from the crystal above focused on the raw materials below and any excess vibration absorbed by the custom built base, I can remake and join crystals together by bridging the gaps with magic, which destabilizes the structure of the crystal and allows it to be matched up with others, other material is either grown by magic or pressed into it from smaller shards."

"Wait, wut?" Applejack looked confused

"I can make crystals any size or shape with this."

"You don't mean…" Twilight began. Myles nodded and pointed at the crystal set into the ceiling.

"Hammer," he pointed at the anvil covered in stone, "Anvil."

"So you smash crystals together here?" Rainbow asked. Twilight looked furious.

"No, I melt them together, like a real forge. Sure I don't actually hit the crystals with that big one up there, but it exerts pressure and energy onto the materials, so on a molecular level the reaction is similar. And I can do it all from behind the blast shields, so there's no need to get all upset, Twilight." He grinned as her expression faded into a simple frown.

He led the others upstairs in order to avoid the impending argument. Twilight followed reluctantly. The others complimented his house again and took their leave, but Twilight lingered behind and fixed Myles with a glare. He turned to her and sighed.

"Alright, you're determined to say this no matter how many times I tell you I have it under control, so let's have it." Twilight frowned deeper at him.

"I wasn't… just…" She looked flustered for a moment, "Just be careful, alright?"

Myles blinked and then smiled, "I will." Twilight pulled him into a quick hug before excusing herself as well.

"Now," Myles bit his lip in excitement as he pulled his goggles over his eyes, "Time for a test run."

Twilight was already having trouble sleeping that night. She'd written to Celestia about her concerns over Myles along with the letter she'd sent after Applebloom finally accepted her blank flank and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were formed. She knew Myles took precaution, but considering he'd spent years without any progress, she sometimes wondered if he remembered how dangerous the power he was dealing with was. Then again, she supposed he knew better than anyone, having been on the receiving end dozens of times. That didn't mean he couldn't make a mistake though.

Almost the instant she thought this, she heard the explosion. If there had been any doubt as to where it originated, the eerie orange glow that briefly shone through her window confirmed it. She ran out the front door and directly for Myles' house. As she approached, she was relieved to see the pony in question open the door, but she became concerned a moment later as he stumbled outside and thick smoke poured out from under the door and the vents at the tower's base.

"Myles!" She shouted as she ran to his side, where he sank to his rear haunches, coughing. "Myles are you alright?!" He waved a hoof at her but continued coughing for a bit.

The coughing fit began to fade and she met his nervous smile with a critical gaze. "I'm good, Twilight, blast shield saved me, but it turns out I need better ventilation. That's not the best part though, the crystal's intact! The magic fell out of rhythm and created the explosion, but the crystal was too sturdy for the explosion to affect it! So larger crystals can be used to safely experiment with small-scale spells without risking damage to the crystal! Bit loud though, sorry if I woke you."

"ME?!" Twilight shouted, causing Myles to wince in pain, "You probably woke Princess Celestia!" She gestured down the street where several heads poked out of windows and front doors at the commotion. The smoke had ceased billowing out of his house but now the observers had their attention fixed on the argument outside. Myles waved at his neighbors sheepishly.

"Sorry everypony, everything's under control," he turned back to his house but was blocked by Twilght.

"This is under control? You nearly blew up your house!"

"Yeah, but I didn't. besides, the basement's reinforced for this very reason and like I said, I had taken cover. Everything's fine, Twilight, relax."

She put a hoof to her head in frustration, "What were you even doing? I saw the light from that explosion inside the library!"

"Really?" Myles looked excited, "That's interesting… Energy output of that magnitude would exceed the projected storage capacity I'd calculated…"

"You do calculations?" Twilight asked skeptically, remembering an instance when she'd asked him to double check an equation of hers only to have him make dozens of excuses to get out of it. He seemed to realize what she meant and frowned mockingly.

"I do ... sure sometimes I make estimations… that turn out to be wrong…"

"So, entirely random guesses?"

"Educated …. random guesses… look, do you want to know what I'm working on or not?" He finished with frustration. Twilight grinned a bit before nodding.

"I'm trying to align the waves of magic so their amplitude can rest inside each other."

"And that will do… what, exactly?"

"I'll be able to compress the energy and store it for transfer to other crystals or even just as a power source."

"A magical battery then?" Twilight seemed genuinely interested for a moment, but then shook her head, "Listen, that does sound fascinating, but do you think you could do these experiments during the daytime? When noponys trying to sleep?"

"Yeah yeah, I'll try again in the morning, but that reaction…" Myles muttered as Twilight put a hoof around his shoulders and led him back to his front door, "The waves forcing against each other is what causes the ruptures… perhaps given a gentle push against each other and combined with the durability of the larger, purer crystals… they can be used as a temporary accelerator to deliver short bursts of magic when activated… maybe this works in either direction and can be used for automated-." His voice was muffled as Twilight pushed him inside and shut the door, smiling and shaking her head. At least he'd be easier to keep an eye on during the day.

Neither of them caught the brief flash of light or the snickering sound carried away by the early morning breeze.

**Yup, nothing to do with the episode. To be honest I got stuck on the end of this one, trying to figure out something to do. But I squeezed some crystal functionality in there. So much so that I considered deleting it, on the basis that I'm getting ahead of myself again, but then I changed it a bit and…. Well I still may come back and change it to avoid giving stuff away. No. No I must live with my decisions. Besides the idea I put down instead to distract from the idea I didn't want to give away is sort of interesting. **

**GAH! These last few chapters were so short! I've been having some real life stuff going on but that's no excuse. I may have to resort to a tactic I was saving for an episode of season 2. The trouble is there's not much for Myles to affect in these episodes without completely messing up the plot. I'm honestly trying to pace myself here and I'm starting to realize I'm not so great at it. I keep going back to read the first eight chapters and realize Myles has already been hospitalized twice, had his house destroyed and realized his feelings for Twilight. Granted the last one had to happen in season 1 because… reasons. But still, with this installment I'm actually nearer halfway through season 1, which feels good, even if I did have to fudge it by going under my word budget (oh crap that episode is coming up too!).**

**Still, after the latest review, I feel bad about holding back for this long. And there are episodes coming up where he will have a greater involvement. Not to mention I'm actually going to make something of the random foreshadowing I threw in before season 1 ends.**

**I mean, I've even decided to make something special of the next episode. I should really stop promising things ahead of time, since that's what happened with this chapter. But I realized the next episode was number 13. My favorite number. So I gotta make something special out of it. Hope you're not Triskadecaphobic.**

**And then I thought, why don't I go back and add a bunch of foreshadowing for the next episode? Did I? Ha-ha-hardly! I don't even know exactly what I'm going to do yet and I really am tired of overthinking these last few episodes, so if I do ever go back and make adjustments, it'll be much later.**

**So yeah, just some crystal mechanics and a bit of Twilight for this one. So why do I feel like a jerk for releasing it? Man this is frustrating. Please keep reading! I'm sorry!**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Lucky 13. Course the whole reason I like the number is because I think it's silly to assign good or bad luck to a number. If you're playing a game where rolling that number on dice is bad, maybe, but not for just randomly seeing it around. **

**Oh yeah, couple things up front: Settle in for another long chapter and, as usual…**

**I don't own My Little Pony. Enjoy.**

Fall Weather Friends or Resounding Echoes

"Great," Myles rolled his eyes as he looked around, "This one again."

The crystal cave closed in on him again. The crystals were rapidly growing together to compress him accompanied by the familiar chant replacing the steady hum of magic.

_"__You alone stand twixt these woods and war."_

"I know already, so shut it!" Myles shouted over the din. He charged his horn with magic, steadying his feet in preparation to blast the entire collection… then he blinked as he heard a soft dull tone. Myles sighed as the crystals closed in and his vision blurred.

"You just gotta suck the fun out of everything…" he mumbled as everything went dark.

Myles blinked his eyes and placed a hoof on the crystal armband on his end table and slid it over his leg. He rolled out of bed and tapped the crystal with another hoof, frowning at the projection of the perimeter. Its upper surface was covered in small indistinct shapes. They were all about the same size but he couldn't see any other consistencies from the projection.

He ran up the stairs two steps at a time until he arrived at the observation deck. Then he tugged on the rope to pull down the stairs to the roof and leapt up those stairs as well, skidding to a stop at the edge of the tower roof and gazing out towards the Everfree Forest.

Hundreds of birds, squawking and screeching, flew out of the forest and over the town. He ducked as one flew low, feeling the rush of air as it passed over his ears and shoulders. He tried to follow its progress in the other direction but raised a hoof to cover his eyes as the sunrise flickered, partially blocked by the swarm of tiny birds fleeing the woods as though it were on fire. He spotted a larger shadow and squinted as he tried to make out what it was. His answer came when he tilted his ears forwards and barely heard a soft voice over the din of flapping wings.

"Oh! Um… please… if you don't mind… I mean, if it's not too much trouble, could you-?"

"Fluttershy?" Myles walked forwards to the spot where the yellow pegasus had landed so he could face away from the sun. They kept their heads low as the occasional bird zoomed over their heads.

"Oh, you're awake Myles," if not for his superb hearing, Myles wouldn't have made out Fluttershy's murmured words over the noise, "What's going on? All the little birds are flying off and I don't know why."

"Can't you speak to them or something?" Myles shouted, ducking as another bird dove low over his tower.

"They just keep saying-AAH!" Fluttershy cried out as another bird swooped over her head.

"What?" Myles shouted, glaring at the flock diving at the tower.

"All they'll say is- Oh dear!"

"Say again?"

"The only thing they'll say is-" the flapping faded away as the last of the birds cleared the tower and flew into the distance, "Fly away! Oh!" Fluttershy looked more sheepish, if possible, "Sorry, I didn't mean to shout." Myles looked confused for a moment, as she had only barely exceeded her usual gentle volume by a bit.

"Its fine," Myles looked back to the forest, "Looks like they're all done."

"But… 'fly away?' They sounded so scared and they kept repeating it. Over and over and over-" She stopped pacing back and forth as Myles put a hoof to her shoulder.

"Fluttershy, cool it. Okay?"

"But something's obviously very wrong! What could scare those cute little birds so badly?"

"Anything! You've taken care of birds loads of times. It doesn't take much to spook them. More than likely a manticore burped somewhere in the forest and set them off." Myles smiled widely at her and laughed a bit.

"Oh," Fluttershy seemed unsure all of a sudden, "I suppose… if you say so… Maybe you're right…I'll just head home then…" She flapped her wings gently and took off.

Myles watched her glide softly towards her home, almost completely silent compared to the recent uproar of wings. When she seemed as small as one of the birds in the distance, a grim expression replaced his smile as he dashed back downstairs. He felt bad for using Fluttershy's trusting nature against her, but he'd have felt worse causing his friend to panic.

He grabbed his goggles off the hook on the wall and slipped them over his head as he continued down to the forge. He eyed the massive crystals lined up against the far wall, each humming with stored magic. He'd finally balanced the process of magical storage and was in the midst of finding proper ways to channel it where it needed to go, but apparently the theory was going to be put to a proper test today. He secured one crystal onto his back with some leather straps and made the others release just enough energy to float off the ground as he guided them upstairs and out his front door.

What he told Fluttershy was true, flocks of birds got spooked in Everfree all the time. Myles was honestly surprised that any of them were foolish enough to land there in the first place. Normally the flock settled down elsewhere in Everfree or even in the nearby White-tail wood. He hadn't pointed out how unusual it was for flocks of multiple different kinds of birds fleeing at once. Or the even more suspicious fact that they fled in such panic that they barely missed his tower, even though it was a relatively new addition to the horizon. Not to mention the words they were repeating. Not having Fluttershy's gift for animals, he didn't know what birds usually talked about or how intelligent the conversation was, but he'd be willing to bet it was more complex than "Fly away!"

He looked about to see if anyone was watching and proceeded when he saw the coast was clear. He galloped a familiar trail along the outside of the forest, the same he had run along with a mad cackle as he set up the perimeter for the first time. This time, he allowed the larger battery crystals to settle down outside the barrier, carefully using their own energy to drill them several feet underground until he reached the end of the barrier.

Shutting his eyes, he focused on the subtle basslike thrum beneath his hooves and reached out with his magic to tune the barrier, listening for the subtle pitch change as each one connected to his magic. Furrowing his brow, he sets each crystal on the same frequency as the batteries and carefully weaves an adjustment to the spell into all of them. They were self-sustaining before, but now the strength of the barrier could be increased to handle much more stress. He gasped as he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

He rolled his shoulders, adjusting the battery strapped to his back and glanced around one last time to see if anyone was watching. If all went well, he'd be in the forest and have dealt with the problem before anyone missed him. Of course, the last time he'd thought something along those lines his house was destroyed and he'd wound up in the hospital. And even that hadn't been preceded by an ominous exodus of birds from the forest. To top it all off, the words he'd been having nightmares about for the past several weeks echoed in his memory.

"You alone stand twixt these woods and war, huh?" He frowned as he walked into the trees. "So this won't take as long as an actual war, right?" He stopped and shook his head. "Right… and I'm Starswirl the Bearded…" He mumbled as he continued deeper into the woods and activated the barrier by tapping the crystal on his bracer.

Myles had been becoming steadily more aware of how sensitive his hearing was since Twilight had discovered it. It seemed every day he found a sound he had been tuning out his entire life and he had been increasingly thankful that he could, seeing as he probably would never have slept for more than 30 seconds if he heard everything. The incident with the Poison Joke had only reinforced his sensitivity, as the oppressive silence had given him something with which to compare the amount of noise he encountered every day.

He couldn't help but think of that day when he thought he'd never hear again as he walked deeper into Everfree forest. It was just as quiet as it had been then. Obviously, the birds had all gone, but nothing else made a sound either. No squirrels or other small mammals scampered through the brush. No insects chirped or buzzed. Not a single ground-shaking footfall from anything that could tear through a house. Just silence aside from the crystal humming gently on his back. It was unnerving him and occasionally he found himself scraping a hoof across the trunks of nearby trees just to hear something else.

Suddenly he slipped as the ground dipped forwards. Fresh earth was overturned and compressed in the ground in front of him. He backed out of the hole and gazed at the shape indented into the dirt for a few moments before his eyes widened in surprise.

"No," he said flatly as he looked up at the clearing he'd walked into. "No." He shook his head in denial as he spotted freshly fallen rocks at the mouth of the cave across the clearing. "No." His eye twitched as it traced the line of freshly fallen trees to his right, knocked over in either direction as though something massive had passed between them.

He'd been to this clearing before, he'd followed a pair of foolish colts into the cave across from him and he'd fled along the line of fallen trees from what had turned out to be an Ursa Minor. Now everything was different. Now the opening to the cave was larger, as was the gap between the rows of shattered tree-trunks off to the side. He might have put all this down to himself not having paid enough attention during his last trip here if he hadn't literally stumbled into the most blatant piece of evidence that something had changed since then.

The indentation in the ground was one of eleven. Four others were similar in size and lie to the sides of the one he'd stumbled into. There was a smaller divot ahead of each of the five depressions and behind the main five was one larger hole that spanned the width of the others and rose up to meet the ones in the middle. It bore a remarkable resemblance to a bear's footprint. A bear several times larger than any he'd ever seen. And the last one he'd seen had pushed a rockslide through his house.

"Buck me…" he whispered to no one in particular, "Mommy's awake."

"Twilight!" Myles shouted as he hammered on the door of the library, "Twilight! C'mon! Open up!" He ran around to the window and peered inside to see total darkness. Turning and growling in frustration, he ran for Sweet Apple Acres and almost fell over as a piece of paper blew into his face and blocked his vision. He violently tore the paper away from his face and was about to throw it to the ground when the text caught his eye.

"Annual Running of the Leaves. Today only in White-tail Wood. Seriously?" Myles crumpled up the poster and pitched it into an alley. "Didn't we just wrap-up winter? Somepony's way off script here." He ran to a nearby house and pounded on the door, then quickly ran to the window to see another pitch black interior and pounded on the window-sill in frustration. He looked around at the surrounding homes, all of which were dark.

"Applejack!? Rarity?!" Myles shouted as loudly as he could, "Rainbow Dash!? Pinkie Pie?!" He hesitated as he looked around for any signs of his friends. "Fluttershy?" he asked quietly. Gritting his teeth, he sprinted back to the forest, toggling the barrier as he passed over the threshold.

Myles galloped along the side of the ravine and across the bridge they had returned from a few weeks ago to a straw-covered hut built into a tree. He raised a hoof to knock on the door when he spotted a piece of paper nailed to the door. Squinting as his eyes adjusted to the low light, he read the harsh, jagged writing on the note out loud.

_Sorry, Guardian, for leaving my home,_

_It is fated that you walk this trail alone._

"Oh yeah, of course. I get it," Myles rolled his eyes, "'You alone stand twixt these woods and war.' Well how was I supposed to know that was the one thing you said that was meant literally? Also some directions would've been nice, since you can see the future and all. Just saying." As he said this more words appeared on the page.

_Not all things are revealed to us here,_

_For the answer you must follow your ear._

"Oh now that's just showing off. And follow my ear, huh? So what exactly am I listening fo-" Myles head whipped around as he heard a deep sound build into a full roar that shook the tree branches and the ground beneath his feet. Myles rolled his eyes and crumpled up the paper note before running towards the origin point of the sound, not bothering to read the words that began to appear after he heard the sound. "Yeah yeah, laugh it up before it even happens."

"Okay okay," Myles panted as he ran deeper into the forest, "think Myles. How are you going to beat this thing? Can't dump it off a cliff, it'll just climb out. Can't drown it since I'm not close enough to the ocean. For all I know it already ate the swamp-monster so that's out and that leaves me with… a single prototype battery crystal, an upgraded barrier and…. that's all. Fantastic. Oh yes, and let's not forget I don't even know why today, OF ALL DAYS, it decided to wake up and…" His eyelid twitched as he skidded to a stop in front of a familiar cliff, overlooking a vine-riddled basin. When he was waiting for the sound of a manticore impacting the bottom, it had seemed abyssal in its depth.

Now it seemed a trivial step in comparison to the beast that stood crushing a large section of overgrown basin. The cliff brought him level with the Ursa Major's upper thigh as it rested its front legs on the cliff opposite, slowly and steadily climbing towards a ruined stone castle. The star-covered purple bear could have crushed half of Ponyville by lying down for a nap. Halfway up its back was a small blue patch of fur that Myles had to squint to recognize as the infant Ursa that had destroyed his house.

"That…" he said flatly, "is a considerably larger bear than I was expecting."

Myles galloped at top speed along the cliff-side as he raced for the bridge that Rainbow Dash had repaired the day they met, the fastest and only way he knew how to get to the Ursa's apparent goal. He gritted his teeth and air whistled through his nostrils as he pushed himself to run faster. The Ursa brought its front right paw upwards and it began to move downwards towards the old castle of the alicorn sisters, former resting place of the Elements of Harmony. Before he was halfway across the bridge and the Ursa could crush the castle, another roar sounded across the valley and something erupted from within the crumbling ruin with enough speed and ferocity to throw the city-sized bear off-balance.

Myles nearly tripped over himself as he gaped at the spectacle before him and slowed his mad gallop. The Ursa fell backwards, catching the edge of the cliff to stop from rolling onto its back and rearing onto its hind legs. It swung its head violently to try and detach the new assailant, who repeatedly clawed around the Ursa's eyes and stabbed the bear repeatedly in the nose with the sharp sting on its tail. Latched onto the head of an Ursa Major was a manticore with scars running across the right side of its face and body.

Myles resumed running for the castle, but no longer sprinting frantically. The Ursa Major was busy dipping its nose in the overgrowth in the basin to try and scape off the angry manticore. The formerly purple snout was swollen and red, its massive maw opened wide to reveal teeth as large as Myles' new home. A loud rasping noise echoed across the basin and it took Myles a moment to figure out the Ursa was attempting to roar again. A desperate sting to a spot under the bear's jaw had caused its throat to swell and its vocal chords to be obstructed. Its breathing was unaffected apparently, as it swung its head with as much ferocity as before.

His hooves hitting stone, Myles took the steps up to the castle two at a time and headed directly for the interior staircase that spiraled up to the second floor. When he arrived at the edge near a collapsed wall he stumbled as the entire castle shook beneath his feet. The Ursa Major had roughly landed with its front paws on the cliff below the castle and brought its snout low to the ground. On its back, the blue mass of fur rapidly moved up the back of its parent and tackled the manticore to the ground, rolling away swiftly and leaving the manticore open. The manticore rolled out of the way as the Major brought a massive claw down on the spot where it had fallen. Then the manticore rolled back the way it came as another massive claw came down on the spot where it would have ended up, as it rolled against the first paw it stung the limb several times drawing another rasp from the Major.

"Wow, Manti's _really_ been paying attention to our fights. If this keeps up I'm gonna have to start paying her. First things first, though. HEEEEEEEEEY!"

The Major had been leaning its head forwards to bite down on the manticore, but its gigantic ears twitched in irritation as Myles' shout and its head rose to bring the miniscule pony into view. Eyes several times his own size focused on Myles as he concentrated on the crystal on his back. He brought some energy forwards and focused it in his horn. A beam of magic lanced forth and struck the creature under the eye, causing it to blink momentarily. Myles' horn sparked and the beam fizzled out. "Not NOW!" he shouted as he glanced back at the battery and then quickly snapping his gaze back to the Ursa, whose raspy exhale knocked Myles off his hooves, despite not being a fully-fledged roar. The thick strands of saliva were blown forwards and some splashed down heavier than boulders on the floor next to Myles, blasting him farther backwards into the castle.

Struggling to his feet, Myles pulled more energy from the crystal on his back and focused on the rhythm of the magic unspooling from the battery. He fired another beam but this one soon wavered and disappeared like the first. The massive bear brought a paw up to sweep the floor and Myles stumbled again as it came to a rest on the same floor he was standing on. The massive purple limb scraped grooves into the back wall as it swept towards Myles and he summoned another blast of energy. His horn fizzled again and he growled in frustration, momentarily distracted as the bear rasped at him again. Looking up just in time, Myles leapt into the air and landed in a mass of purple fur. Digging in his hooves, he managed to hang on as the arm withdrew from the castle.

Myles felt a wave of heat flow over him as the creature brought its mouth around to swallow him. He fired a short burst of magic and struck the roof of the creature's mouth, causing it to rasp and recoil backwards. Myles faltered again but regained his balance and ran up the Ursa's arm. He ran up its shoulder and onto the back of its head as it gripped its snout in pain. He fired a short burst straight up into the sky and gasped as he was flattened against the Ursa's head. The Ursa swung its head side-to-side, trying to regain its senses. Braced against its fur, Myles was able to stay on.

Myles thought back on the bursts he'd fired previous and realized they cut out at the same time. Thinking quickly, he stood up and set his legs in a stable position before firing another pulse into the sky. When the beam was about to cut out at the bottom of the magic's rhythm he pulled more energy from the crystal and sent it surging along the beam. The beam continued and widened. Myles gritted his teeth as the beam pressed against him but kept his footing even as he was forced against the bear with enough force to push it back towards the castle. He felt the bear accelerate as it was pushed back towards the cliff. After a few seconds he stopped firing and ran over the top of the Ursa's head and over its swollen snout. As the castle rushed up to meet the beast he leapt off of its nose and rolled onto the floor he'd been on previously. He had hit just after the Ursa and coughed violently to clear his throat of the dust it had kicked up as the bear itself slid backwards off the floor. Said floor buckled underneath Myles' hooves and slanted towards the open wall, causing him to slide forwards and onto the cliff in front of the castle.

A roar caught his attention as the Ursa Minor charged at him from his left, only to collide with the front claws of the manticore charging from the opposite direction. Claws and teeth scraped against each other above his head, growls from both beasts surrounded Myles as he ran at the Ursa Minor, leapt and bucked his back hooves into its stomach. The bear gasped as the wind was kicked out of it and it fell backwards. The manticore growled and Myles rounded on it, but when he spotted the creature, its attention was directed behind him at the basin. Myles followed its gaze and saw the Major rolling forwards to its feet. Myles shouted unintelligibly and seized some of the vines from the basin, drawing upon the power from the crystal he wrapped one around its back leg and tripped it. Another vine lashed upwards and struck the bear in the face, hitting it with such force that it rolled over backwards and landed on its belly. Myles pants as he suddenly feels drained but manages to keep his footing. The manticore looks strangely at him but makes no move to attack.

A desperate growl caught their attention as the Ursa Minor called nervously after its parent, who hadn't moved yet. It leapt from the cliff and bounded off a few lower ledges, running towards its downed mother. A strange short roar came from behind Myles and he turned to see the manticore baring its teeth at him. He backed away and the manticore allowed its jowls to fall forwards and cover the razor teeth again. Myles gave it a curious look and glanced around as he heard short, light barking growls from inside the castle. He spotted another mane and set of wings around a rock as a smaller manticore peered around the ruined wall at him. Myles stood dumbstruck until both manticores looked behind him and roared.

Myles rounded on the basin and saw the Major shaking its head and getting to its feet. He frowned deeply and ran for the cliff. He glanced around for a way down and spotted an artificial surface covered in strange vines. Blasting the vines, he was surprised to find a staircase spiraling down into the basin. He merely shrugged and galloped towards it, leaping down and only hitting every fourth step in his haste. In a few moments he hit the bottom and charged towards the center of the basin. The vines obscured his view, but over the tops of the foliage he could see the shoulders of the Major shifting as it brought its feet under itself and took a step forwards. Rows of vines and trees collapsed as the ground beneath Myles shook again and he used the new gaps to make his way to the massive clearing of broken plant life where the Ursa had landed. He ran a magical pulse through the crystal to check its energy level. He still had about 10% of the battery's full capacity, a lot more than he'd have on his own, but not enough to keep blasting the Major into submission. He frowned and plowed forwards into the clearing where the Major and Minor stood.

Seeing the movement, both massive bears turned their gaze to where he had come through. The Minor growled and began to move towards him but its progress was stopped by a massive purple paw landing in its path. Myles glared at the Ursa Major, who met his gaze with eyes that could have crushed him with their weight alone. The Major tentatively raised its other paw and Myles responded by charging another beam. The Major focused on the grayish-blue light pulsing around Myles' horn and brought its paw backwards, slowly and softly lowering it back to the ground. Myles smirked again. They had no way of knowing how much energy he could fire at them.

That only left the problem of him standing between two irate and dangerous mothers with no real idea why they were fighting or how to stop them from going back to it after he left. The Princess' castle, Ponyville and the Everfree forest would likely be destroyed by the Major if he just left them to their own devices.

And yet, they stood still, their gazes fixed on one little pony with a crystal strapped to his back. They waited for him to make a move with genuine apprehension in their eyes. As far as the Ursa's were concerned, he was currently the biggest threat in this forest. Myles narrowed his eyes and took a step forwards. The Major rasped and pushed its infant back, baring its teeth at Myles. Myles frowned and took another step forwards.

The ground rumbled as the Major lifted one of its rear legs and took a step back. Myles smirked, being careful not to expose any teeth so bears didn't feel threatened any further. He resisted the urge to laugh as the thing that had caused him so much fear backed away from him. He turned and walked back towards the staircase.

A growling rasp sounded from behind him and rather than seeing, he felt the creature move to crush him under its massive paw once more. He kicked his back legs out and spun on his front legs to face the Major again, charging another blast from the crystal and taking aim before the Major's eyes rolled backwards and it seemed to pass out. He allowed the energy to dissipate and with a wheezing exhale the beast fell forwards. Myles barely made it out from under the spot where it landed in time. The Minor crawled over the Majors arm and nuzzled against its snout. Myles waited a moment but sighed with relief as the Minor continued to push against its mother, who exhaled and blew Myles' mane about as the wind rushed about him. He turned again and began to stalk away when he was interrupted again by a nearby howl.

Myles actually snarled as he turned to the source of this sound. A wooden profile stood atop a mound of vines, its yellow eyes glowing as it howled again. Dozens more points of yellow light appeared on the top of and in between the vines. More growling filled the air as the howling ceased and the entire pack of timberwolves glared at the unconscious feast before them, its pathetically mewling offspring and the small foolish pony standing before them.

He turned around again and walked calmly towards the stairs. The wolves jumped to the ground, surrounding the Ursa Minor as it whimpered pathetically. Myles lip curled in frustration as he heard the Minor roar and a hollow rattle as a timberwolf was swatted out of the air and scattered across the clearing. A roar of pain echoed as the Minor felt teeth sink into its shoulder. The Minor had nearly killed him and now he stood with his back to it as its impending death snarled and snapped at it. He took a few more steps and grinned as he thought he'd have one less reason to be cranky about his job tomorrow. Then Myles stopped, its latest cries striking a chord in Myles and his own line of thought reminding him of the something he heard after the last time he'd dealt with the Minor.

_"__It was just cranky."_

Myles shook his head and frustration and turned around yet again, blasting the two timberwolves biting into the Minor's back with one magical pulse and reducing them both to splinters. The Minor looked at him in shock.

"Well!?" Myles shouted and every point of yellow light turned its attention to him, "Who's first? YOU?!" He charged energy in his horn and fired a shot at the timberwolf who had summoned the pack. It yelped as it barely ducked under the blast and lost an ear to the edge of a beam of magical energy. Every timberwolf was on its feet and growling at him now, but they were backing away. Their wooden teeth bared, each timberwolf shuffled back the way they came, those on the ground scrambling back up over and between the vines to retreat. The crystal on Myles' back stopped humming, it's power depleted. Myles raged on, settling for shouting at the desperately fleeing pack.

_"__No promises, doc."_

He galloped forwards to the top of a pile of vines, causing the timberwolves nearby to scatter, yelping in fear and jostling each other to get away from him. "Is that all!?" Myles' eyes were wide with manic rage as he glared at the retreating creatures. "Why? AREN'T YOU HUNGRY? TAKE A SHOT! ALL OF YOU! RIGHT HERE AND NOW! COOOOOOOOOOOMMMME ANNNNNNNNNND GET IIIIIIIIT!" He swung his head back and forth wildly as he extended the last sentence. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? YOU MIGHT GET LUCKY! TWO URSAS AND A PONY AND YOU ONLY HAVE TO FIGHT THE PONY! SO WHO'S FIRST?!" He snorted and bared his teeth at them. "WHO WANTS TO GET MAULED BY A BUCKING PONY?! HUH?!" His voice echoed through the basin only accompanied by the yelps of the retreating timberwolves. He glanced back at the Minor and its mother, who is blinking itself awake. Both of them recoil at his gaze and then relax when he turns away again and stalks back towards town. His own words echo in his mind as he shudders and gasps, his strength drained. Myles begins to limp home, his hooves feeling like lead weights at the end of each leg. His gait is deliberate and resolute, the only betrayals to his weakened condition being his heavy lidded eyes and the echoing slap of his hooves as they dig into the dirt with every step.

_"__Not while I breathe."_

The Everfree forest isn't quiet anymore. The tiny creatures, birds and insects have returned to their respective homes now that there is no longer a rampaging Ursa Major on the loose. However frantic calls and chattering sound from all directions at once and fill the woods with incessant noise. The creatures only fall silent at the approach of a lone pony with a crystal on his back and a grim expression. Within a certain radius around Myles every creature holds its breath and only exhales when he has passed their home. The sound returns to these areas slowly, but soon the calls become louder and more frantic than before.

A hush falls over the edge of the woods as Myles approaches the barrier and shuts it down. A zebra stands aghast at the sight before her, having waited for his return but not expecting what she heard the forest speak around her as he walked past her. She blinked and regained her senses before speaking.

"Your strength is proven to these woods.

I hope it was for the common good."

Myles turned his head to face her and glared. Another's words echoed in his mind as he panted, gritting his teeth at the zebra.

_"__Your strength is proven to the world, whether you would believe in it yourself or not."_

Zecora looked nervous and actually stepped back as she met his eyes.

"Today's trial is over but you must know more,

The fight you fought was not-"

"No," Myles stomped towards her with renewed vigor and brought his face within inches of hers, "No more riddles or rhymes today. I've had enough of it for the past several weeks."

"But this thing we must tell y-"

"No, you must not. I plan to sleep well tonight. You save your premonitions for another day." Myles eyes narrowed with each word. Myles had every intention of leaving Zecora there without another word and heading directly for home, but he stopped and turned once more. "I'm sorry, but I need some time. Today… the past few weeks…" He shook his head and Zecora simply nodded.

"Though this will not allay your fears,

I caution you to trust your ears."

He didn't bother turning to acknowledge her as he made his way back to his house and let the crystal battery fall to the floor as he pulled the straps loose. He slumped down on his bed and sighed. Adrenaline still pumped through his veins and he struggled to lay still and relax even as his vision swam and darkened from fatigue. His situation wasn't helped by the thoughts that plagued him and after a few more moments he growled out loud and got to his feet. He made his way upstairs and floated a crystal out of one of the chests and set it back on top of the closed lid. He shot a beam of magic into the crystal and his shoulders slumped as he watched it emit a soft light and listened to its hum.

"I know this is … Twilight's field of research but… I'm not sure how to tell her this without causing her undue stress, and at the same time I feel it should be recorded somewhere. I believe I've learned something about friendship. You have to be able to forgive ponies. Or anything else. They have their own problems and you can't know all of them, but those problems are there. They're dealing with their issues when you walk into their lives and all of that is on them when they interact with you. Even if what they do or say seems like an attack on you personally, you are just a small part of what they are seeing right now. No matter how much what they did hurts or for how long, it wasn't all for you, it was the sum of their troubles up to that point. This applies to strangers and friends alike, but there's a world of difference between the two."

He pants a few times and takes a deep breath before continuing.

"Because a stranger you may never meet again. You will never know those other problems and you will never worry about being hurt by them again. Forgiving a stranger is easy. Forgiving a friend is much harder because you know those other problems. You know the weight they carry and they know yours and they still hurt you. And because you are friends and you know their troubles you might not say anything, but that just adds it to the pile of your own problems that you bring to the next encounter with them. You both hurt and you both bring that pain unless you forgive each other. If you forgive them you have more room for their troubles. Even if they don't forgive you, you can help them if you forgive them first. But it's difficult, because the hurt of that action and all other actions are still there. So there's always the temptation to…" Myles inhaled and shakily continued, "To make them into strangers. Because then it's easy to forgive them, because you'll never have to deal with them again. You never know their pain and you don't add your own to it anymore, because it's too much to see them hurt. And maybe… deep down… you hold onto the pain, because no matter how much you understand about what they were going through, you're… frightened… of it happening again. You want to avoid the pain and you hide away.

I-…you can't do this to yourself. Nopony was meant to bear that pain alone and all it does is make you bitter and angry. So you have to take a chance and open yourself up to others. You have to try and endure the small bits of pain that come with opening up until you find those who'll be there for you because without help… you might find you've become something you don't want to be." Myles chuckled a bit before continuing, "And there will be other problems, other barriers that you may not be able to overcome on your own, but that's why you make more friends, because you need more friends to share your troubles with. The more friends you have, the less each one has to bear. But the best friends would bear it all if you asked them and that's the trouble, you can't let them carry you because for all you know it might destroy them."

He shudders a bit and his knees shake. His eyes water slightly before he blinks the moisture away and continues.

"Ponies keep telling me I'm strong, that I'm amazing or special in some way. And maybe they're right in some cases, but they don't know everything. Strength comes at a cost. Sometimes the cost is little and sometimes it's great. Often, you don't know how much it'll cost until you have to pay. I had a moment of weakness today and I fear I may have become something… undesirable… but I hope to be able to forgive those that hurt me before with the help of my new friends. And maybe… in time… they can forgive me for what I've done to others, though I cannot muster the strength to admit it to them tod-" Myles glanced outside and saw the setting sun and a crowd of ponies approaching the town, "Tonight. But I know this, I am _not _strong," he shakes his head, "I'm going to need help and I don't think I can make he- them… suffer through it. Deepest apologies for laying all this on you, but please don't tell Twilight and the others. I'm not really sure if that counts as a lesson on friendship, it doesn't all make sense to me." He smiled a bit, "I rambled a bit, didn't I? Oh well. I feel better and I hope this made enough sense to be a worthwhile contribution to the study of friendship. Maybe someday I'll make sense of it as well. For now, it's enough to know that somepony else will know."

Myles' horn glowed as he ended the recording spell and levitated the crystal over to him. He stumbled on his way down the stairs and set the crystal down on his work table, where it glowed with a soft pulsing light and hummed at a frequency only he could hear. His ears twitched as he picks up another sound, like wind rushing and echoing through a metal pipe. He frowned as he tilted an ear in confusion and the sound changed to something resembling a piece of metal grinding down a piano string. The sound faded into silence as Myles passed out on his bed.

"-yles! MYLES! WAKE UP!"

Myles cringed as his head spun and he tried to sit up, falling backwards onto his bed and alarming the mares standing beside his bed. He held up a hoof to keep them at a distance as he sat up.

"I'm AWAKE! Geez, Twilight, you know how much that bugs m- your Highness," he attempts to bow as he spots Celestia but his knees shake and he succeeds only in falling forwards into a prone position on the bed.

"Stay still, Myles," Celestia spoke softly, "Twilight has told me of your newfound ability and how it affects you. I'm certain she didn't mean to harm you and was merely concerned with your health. There's no need to stand on ceremony here, we are trespassers in your new home." The Princess smiles and glances around at his tower as Twilight steps forward.

"Sorry Myles," she looked apologetic for now but the hints of frustration and anger rose behind her eyes, "But you didn't reply and-" Myles growled and struggled to his hooves.

"You assumed I'd done something stupid and hurt myself. Honestly Twilight, this is getting old. Not to mention a little offense-" He was cut off as a hoof struck him in the face, knocking him back to the bed. Twilight looked furious.

"I'm terribly sorry for worrying about you. I shouldn't for a second have questioned the great and powerful Myles Shardsole because nothing can stand up to him, can it? Nothing. Well don't worry about me being concerned anymore, clearly you can take care of yourself." She stomped out of his house and slammed the door.

Myles struggled to his hooves once more and the Princess helped him up with her magic. "Twilight may be too angry to see it right now, but I remember you, Myles. Even you aren't that socially inept, so what's going on?" She looked at him skeptically as he laughed.

"Wow, Princess," he grinned up at her, "that was almost insulting me directly, something bothering you?"

"You know I care about Twilight's wellbeing as much as I do your own and the rest of my subjects," her eyes narrow as she gazes at him, "but I will not tolerate this sort of behavior without reason and I know you have a reason, even if you don't bother to think of it until after you do something you always have a reason!" Her voice increased in volume and her hair billowed behind her as if blown by an invisible wind. Myles eyes widened but he continued to smile.

"Well well well," he began quietly, "For once I know something that Princess Celestia doesn't and watch as she handles it with such royal decorum…" He chuckles to himself as the Princess scowls and then regains her composure. She looks ready to speak again but he cuts her off. "Sorry, your highness, couldn't help myself. I've had a long day and it was just so refreshing to see you on the wrong end of some secrets after you've kept so many from me." She frowned and opened her mouth again before he cut her off once more. "But like you said, I had my reasons, even if I haven't figured them out yet. What little information I have is on that crystal," he indicates the crystal on his worktable with his hoof, "And you are welcome to it on one condition."

Celestia's eyes narrowed dangerously, "You interrupt royalty, insult your friends and dare to give me caveats on information about my own kingdom." Her eyes soften and she lays a hoof on his head before she continues speaking gently, "What on Equestria happened to you today?"

He chuckles before answering, "Oh…. Nothing major. The most I can tell you is on that crystal, though you may need your sister's help to understand some of it. I am truly sorry that I can't tell you everything, perhaps another time, but for now that should be everything important."

"And your condition?"

"Don't tell Twilight." He shakes his head, "At least not yet. I'm sure she'll have to hear it someday and I trust your judgment on when that time has come. At the moment I don't have the strength to deal with the fallout from it. Maybe someday. Just not now. Another time…" His eyelids flutter shut as he pitches forwards. Celestia catches him and floats him down to his pillow safely before drawing the covers over his unconscious form.

She silently picks up the crystal and hides it beneath one of her wings before walking to the door and hesitating. She turns back and looks at the dirt-covered stallion sleeping peacefully on his bed and speaks one last time before quietly locking and closing his door.

"You ask much of me, Myles. You request trust not easily given. However my sister and Twilight speak highly of you which leads me to believe you may be worthy of it. This crystal won't shed light on much, I'm sure, but you have your moments of cleverness and your strength has proven great. What troubles me is that you clearly ask even more of yourself. Too much, I fear. I hope one day you will trust us enough to allow us to help you."

**Cryptic allusions to a character's past and future? More mysterious noises in the night along with some attempted warnings from Zecora? Some slightly sloppy character development? Did I just accidentally a story arc?**

**Well… no. First of all it wasn't an accident as such and I did plan some of it. Of course, as per usual it didn't turn out exactly as I expected. Secondly, I don't have the rest of it planned out but I will connect it. I love story arcs and I hope mine turns out okay despite the fact that I'm making most of it up as I go along.**

**Sorry to those of you who have been waiting. I had some issues with getting ahead of myself and writing some ponies out of character, not to mention the story taking a few strange turns. A few I'm still unsure about, but I have to keep reminding myself that there's no pressure here and that's part of the fun. **

**Dunno if you can tell but I'm getting a little attached to the manticore. Bit obvious as she keeps showing up. As I watch the show some more for inspiration I keep finding things that come up for one episode and never show up again. Being as the Ursa Major is one of those things and Myles' interesting history with the Minor, when I had the idea to bring it back as part of something else I rolled with it. Then promptly got stuck for a few weeks. Almost lost sight of what I was originally foreshadowing. As it stands there's a larger shadow enveloping that one now, so I suppose I did. Hopefully whatever comes out of this works well.**

**Normally this is where I would muse about strange inconsistencies and eccentricities about the show, but it's kind of hard to do that when this deviates so much from the episode. The episode itself is okay, but there's not much to discuss and as you've seen, I utilized the town's complete attention on the Running of the Leaves to put Myles into a desperate situation and allow him to grow a bit. Perhaps too much. **

**The only real question I have about this episode has surely been noted before as it was by Myles. Winter Wrap-up was only two episodes ago, why is it fall now? Furthermore, why do we never see any of these holidays twice? Four complete seasons and each one has only occurred once? Don't tell me it's still the same year either because we already have Fall after Winter and another winter coming up for Hearths Warming Eve. Either Equestria has the most erratic orbit around its respective star ever or they're just hoping we don't notice because they can't think of something else for some reason. Or since the rise and fall of the sun is controlled by a magical princess here it may be safe to say the same rules don't apply.**

**Then again, the rules of our world seem to mostly apply inside the Everfree Forest without help from ponykind, only slightly corrupted and warped by this worlds inherent magic. So there's some connection there, however slight and blurred. I wonder if that's going to be important at some point in this story, not to mention the show.**

**Terribly sorry, but no bonus points for catching on to what I hope is a very subtle reference because I don't want people posting the answer in case they ruin it for someone else. It certainly won't be the last allusion I make since that helped me get around my writers block and its already sort of there. If you haven't figured it out by now, you'll understand later, so no demanding people tell you what it is. After all…**

**Spoilers.**

**-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.**


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